LEGAL

Permitted or Pertaining to Law

POSITIVISM

philosophical system that holds that every

rationally justifiable assertion can be
scientifically verified or is capable of logical
or mathematical proof, and that therefore
rejects metaphysics and theism.

LEGAL POSITIVISM

 Philosophy of law that

emphasizes the conventional
nature of law that is socially
constructed.

L
E
G
A
L
P
O
S
I
T
I
V
I
S
M

LAW
RULES
NORMS

JOHN GARDNER

 In any legal system, whether a

given norm is legally valid, and
hence whether it forms part of
the law of that system, depends
on its SOURCES, not its
MERITS

Jeremy Bentham

John Austin

Ronald Dworkin

Thomas Hobbes

Jeremy Bentham and John Austin

Law

is a phenomenon of large societies

with asovereign: a determinate person or
group who have supreme and absolutede
factopower -- they are obeyed by all or
most others but do not themselves
similarly obey anyone else
Command Theory

Ronald Dworkin

theory of law is for Dworkin a theory of

how cases ought to be decided and it
begins, not with an account of the
political organization of a legal system,
but with an abstract ideal regulating the
conditions under which governments may
use coercive force over their subjects.

END