What is Legal Positivism? 

Thank you! I really appreciate your saying that.

This is meeee my eyes are tearing up 😭....this is great

Same here

Honestly tho It’s sooo helpful

Literally me right now.

Glad it was helpful! Check out the other videos already uploaded on my channel. There is a whole Philosophy of Law course playlist, for example.

Thanks! Glad it was helpful.

Thank you!

Glad it helped!

You know Gary! I will certainly let him know that Walter Horn says hello through the internet. And thank you for the kind words about my teaching!

Glad it was helpful!

Glad it was helpful!

Ha, thanks! I really let myself go off there.

My pleasure!

You're welcome. Glad to help!

The separation theory is shit

You're welcome, glad it was helpful!

yup irl

You're welcome!

Most legal positivists would say that something more than that is required for some norms to count as laws. For example, HLA Hart (the most famous and widely-cited legal positivist), thinks that in order for some socially constructed norms to count as laws those norms have to be part of a multi-leveled system, such that some of the norms say how to change other norms (like how a city bylaw says what procedure the city traffic commission has to follow in order to change the city traffic laws; that is an example of a norm specifying how you can change other norms). I will have two videos about Hart's view up in a day or two. But in general positivists do say something broadly like what you have in mind. Here is a video about the legal theory of another legal positivist, John Austin (though it is Austin's theory are summarized by Hart): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0F62gA1LGfw.html

I just posted the video explaining part of Hart's version of positivism: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Xg_9F2h89TE.html

@@profjeffreykaplan thanks

Good question. Legal positivism is a thesis about what has to be true for a legal system to exist (specifically, it says that certain social facts need to obtain). It is undoubtedly true that when creating (and even maintaining) a legal system, the people involved with believe moral beliefs, will believe religious doctrine, etc. But *the fact that they believe those things* is a descriptive, social fact about what is going on inside their brains and what sound waves are coming out of their mouths. So the positivist has no problem granting that legal officials and others have moral ideas. Does that make sense?

Jeffrey Kaplan thank you for your answer. Would it be correct to say that the difference between the positivist and anti-positivist stances is not so much the entities that they describe but their ontological status? For example, Hart takes the internal attitude which involves criticism of other people’s conduct as a mere social fact whereas Dworkin sees it as a interpretation of a norm that involves moral principles. I ask because It seems to me that the line that separates the criticism of the internal attitude in Hart and interpretation in Dworkin is very thin. So it seems to me that the main difference is in how they approach that similar phenomenon: as a social fact in Hart’s case and a morally charged interpretation in Dowrkin’s case.

@@profjeffreykaplan I've thinking about this a lot and I think i can express my point more clearly. What I find paradoxical is that Hart (vs Austin) argues that it is essential that people take the sanctions of the sovereign to be justified. That is, they are not merely grounded on force (as the sanctions backed by threats of Austin. However, given he is a positivist, he doesn't take this process of justification as an interpretative process that involves moral reasonings. However, if the ultimate ground of law is this social pressure to act in acordance with the rules of obligation, aren't the subjects reduced to automata who determinate their feelings of disaproval on the basis of the rule of recognition? This is what I mean with the ontological difference regarging the object of study in Dworkin and Hart. While Hart takes humans as biological entities that produce certain sounds and have certain mental states, Dworkin takes them as subjects who actively involve their moral consideration to interpretate the actions of others.

You're welcome!

Here is a lecture on Chapter 2 of Hart's "The Concept of Law" and the whole purpose of that chapter is to summarize Austin's theory: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0F62gA1LGfw.html And most philosophers of law or analytical jurisprudence scholars accept that Hart's summary of Austin is broadly accurate, so this should be helpful.

@@profjeffreykaplan thank youuuu

You are definitely not the first to ask! In fact, I get this question so frequently, I made a video explaining how it works: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6_d44bla_GA.html

@@profjeffreykaplan that’s genius 😂 also thank you for these videos got myself an exam tomorrow and up until these videos I could not understand this subject, you really explain things well