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Does Hart’s Postscript Provide a Plausible Path to Inclusive Legal Positivism?

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Conceptual Jurisprudence

Part of the book series: Law and Philosophy Library ((LAPS,volume 137))

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Abstract

In Hart’s Postscript the following dilemma is introduced: either the thesis of moral objectivity is true and, then, determining what the law requires may depend on moral arguments, or else that thesis is false and, then, when the law refers to morality it only makes recommendations to the courts to make law in accordance with morality. This paper is intended to show that, on either horn of the dilemma—as Hart seems to understand it—his account remains in the sphere of exclusive legal positivism, and any room for soft-positivism is closed off.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Hart (1994).

  2. 2.

    Dworkin (1967).

  3. 3.

    Hart (1961).

  4. 4.

    The same year the Postscript was published, the first systematic presentation of inclusive legal positivism was published by Waluchow (1994); see also Kramer (1999), Coleman (2001), and presentations of its main ideas in Moreso (2001) and Himma (2002). For exclusive legal positivism, see the defence formulated by Raz (1979, 1994, 2004); see also Gardner (2001), Shapiro (2011), Marmor (2011), and a good general presentation in Marmor (2002).

  5. 5.

    Hart (1994), p. 250.

  6. 6.

    Hart (1994), pp. 253–254.

  7. 7.

    Hart (1994), p. 254.

  8. 8.

    This passage has attracted attention and sparked discussion; see e.g. Himma (1999); Kramer (1999), pp. 152–161; Orrego (2004); Finnis (2007), pp. 48–53; Green (2012), pp. xlii–xlv. See also Moreso (2001): if I then thought I had a way to defend Hart’s position, I have since changed my mind, as will become clear shortly. The expression ‘objective standing’, as Hart himself admits (200), p. 253, comes from Dworkin (1984), p. 250.

  9. 9.

    Hart (1982) ch. 10.

  10. 10.

    Raz’s (1975).

  11. 11.

    See e.g. Raz (1994).

  12. 12.

    This way of rejecting it, however, leads Caracciolo (2009) essay 14 to argue that, for Hart, the rejection of moral objectivism is a conceptual feature of legal positivism—as it was for Ross (1998), for von Wright (1985), and at some point for Bulygin (i.e. his position in Caracciolo (1993) later amended in Bulygin (2006))—because if morality were objective, then legal duties would be a kind of moral duty. Perhaps Hart’s thesis is not so strong: he holds that if legal duties were to imply objective reasons for action, then legal duties would be a kind of moral duty; but he rejects the antecedent of that conditional, and perhaps could remain neutral about the thesis of moral objectivity (i.e. allowing that moral reasons can provide objective reasons to act). See Moreso (2016).

  13. 13.

    Raz (1979).

  14. 14.

    Hart (1982), p. 266.

  15. 15.

    Finnis (2007).

  16. 16.

    Hart (1986) reviewing Williams (1985).

  17. 17.

    Williams (1979).

  18. 18.

    See Smith (1994).

  19. 19.

    A position that, as Finnis himself notes, is confirmed by a Hart connoisseur as fine as Raz (2001), pp. 4–6.

  20. 20.

    This is precisely Bulygin’s position (2006).

  21. 21.

    In fact, already in his important (1958) Hart had rejected, upon consideration, the synonymy between legal positivism and moral non-cognitivism.

  22. 22.

    As is well known, the preface of The Concept of Law (1961) starts by declaring that the objective of the book is an adequate understanding of law, coercion and morality, as distinct yet interrelated social phenomena. Perhaps this tension in Hart’s work shows his difficulties in showing precisely what room he leaves for law between coercion and morality. But this issue would take too far afield.

  23. 23.

    A good overview can be found in Bagnoli (2015).

  24. 24.

    As Parfit (2011) has recently argued, along the lines of Nagel (1986), Dworkin (1996) or Scanlon (2014).

  25. 25.

    For the institutional dimension, see Atienza and Ruiz Manero (2001).

  26. 26.

    Dworkin (1986), pp. 429–430 note 3.

  27. 27.

    Greenberg (2011), p.102.

  28. 28.

    See, for instance, Greenberg (2011, 2014). Perhaps complemented by some recent applications of Darwall’s conception (e.g. 2006, 2013) from a second-person moral perspective, but see also Karr (2007) and Monti (2018).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pompeu Fabra University, Department of Law, Barcelona, Spain

    J. J. Moreso

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  1. J. J. Moreso
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Correspondence to J. J. Moreso .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Jorge Luis Fabra-Zamora

  2. Hermann Kantorowicz-Institute of Fundamental Legal Research, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Gonzalo Villa Rosas

Additional information

I am very grateful to the editors of the volume, Jorge Luis Fabra-Zamora and Gonzalo Villa Rosas, for valuable comments, corrections and suggestions. The work has benefited from two research grants: DER2016-80471-C2-1-R of the Spanish Government and 2017 SGR 00823 from the Generalitat of Catalonia.

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Moreso, J.J. (2021). Does Hart’s Postscript Provide a Plausible Path to Inclusive Legal Positivism?. In: Fabra-Zamora, J.L., Villa Rosas, G. (eds) Conceptual Jurisprudence. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 137. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78803-2_8

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