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Internal Morality of the Law
Lon L. Fuller (1902-1978)

(For more on Lon L. Fuller, see
http://www.capital.demon.co.uk/LA/legal/fuller.htm )

According to Fuller (cf. The Morality of Law (1964)) a legal system
has the following eight desiderata:

(1) There must be laws
(i.e. someone or some body handing out rulings is not enough; there
must be a law in existence)
(2) These laws must be publicized
(i.e. laws cannot be kept secret, or be unknown)
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(3) These laws must prospective, not retroactive
(i.e. laws should not to extend to cases before the existence of the
law)
(4) These laws must be understandable
(i.e. not to be (a) unintelligible, or even (b) extremely difficult to
understand)
(5) These laws must not contradict each other
(i.e. if there were laws e.g. requiring one to vote and prohibiting one to
vote, then it would be impossible not to break the law -- there would
be a "legal dilemma"; the law could not guide action)
(6) These laws must not require the impossible
(e.g. by impossible here is meant physically or psychologically
impossible, e.g. no law forbidding sneezing in public; "ought implies
can")
(7) These laws must not change too rapidly
(i.e. for example there should not be, in the same day, a new law, then
the scrapping of that law and another new law, and then the scrapping
of that law and another new law)
(8) These laws must be the laws that are enforced
(i.e. the actual administration of the law must be consistent with the
laws themselves; it must not be the case that these laws are not
enforced and that no laws, or other laws, are enforced)

"A total failure in any one of these eight directions does not simply
result in a bad system of law; it results in something that is not
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properly called a legal system at all" (p. 21)

"Government says to the citizen in effect, "These are the rules we
expect you to follow. If you follow them, you have our assurance that
they are the rules that will be applied to your conduct."" (p. 21-2)

Note that Fuller's "secular natural law" theory is supposed to be "a
procedural as distinguished from a substantive natural law" (p. 24).
Fuller's eight directives say nothing about the content of the laws of a
legal system, other than that the laws must not require the impossible.
It may be consistent with his theory that a legal system have laws
protecting slavery, human sacrifice, the denial of property rights to
minorities, etc., so long as these laws exist, are publicized, are
understandable, are not impossible to obey, are stable, and are the
laws that actually are enforced.

Q. Are all of these directives necessary?
Q. Are they all equally important?
Q. Are they, taken together, sufficient (or are there more directives
needed)?
Q. Could a system of law observe all of these directives and yet
consist entirely of impermissible laws?
Q. Can there be a legal system in Fuller's sense that is nevertheless
oppressive?