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Jurisprudence Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2011

Hart

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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

Legal Positivism As An Idea About Morality, Martin J. Stone Apr 2011

Legal Positivism As An Idea About Morality, Martin J. Stone

Articles

I ask what a proper critical target for 'legal positivism' might be. I argue that utilitarian moral theory, and more generally fully directive moral theories, are unacknowledged motivations for legal positivism. Contemporary debate about 'the nature of law' is, historically speaking, much more of a footnote to utilitarianism than has been recognized.