Legal positivism Bentham's Utilitarian theory, Austin's Imperative/ Analytical theory, Prof. HLA Hart's Concept of Law, Hans Kelson's Pure Theory of Law

A new Motor Vehicles rule takes effect on Monday. You may think it is silly or even unfair, but no one doubts that it is law. Why? Not because it is wise, but because it was made by the people who have the power to make it, in the way the system requires. Legal positivism starts from that everyday observation and builds a theory on it: whether something is law is a question of where it came from, not of whether it is good. The four thinkers in this topic give four versions of that answer.

In two minutes

Legal positivism separates law as it is from law as it ought to be: the existence of a law depends on social facts about its source, not on its moral merit.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Jurisprudence / Legal Theory on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.