The legal relation : legal theory after legal positivism

Resource Information

The work The legal relation : legal theory after legal positivism represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Biddle Law Library - University of Pennsylvania Law School. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The legal relation : legal theory after legal positivism

Title remainder

legal theory after legal positivism

Statement of responsibility

Alexander Somek

Creator

• Somek, Alexander, 1961-

Author

• Somek, Alexander, 1961-

Subject

• Law -- Philosophy
• Law -- Political aspects
• Legal positivism

Language

eng

Summary

What is law? The usual answer is that the law is a system of norms. But this answer gives us at best half of the story. The law is a way of relating to one another. We do not do this as lovers or friends and not as people who are interested in obtaining guidance from moral insight. In a legal context, we are cast as 'character masks' (Marx), for example, as 'buyer' and 'seller' or 'landlord' and 'tenant'. We expect to have our claims respected simply because the law has given us rights. We do not want to give any other reason for our behavior than the fact that we have a legal right. Backing rights up with coercive threats indicates that we are willing to accept legal obligations unwillingly. This book offers a conceptual reconstruction of the legal relation on the basis of a critique of legal positivism

Member of

• Cambridge introductions to philosophy and law

Cataloging source

UkCbUP

Index

index present

LC call number

K235

LC item number

.S625 2017

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Series statement

Cambridge introductions to philosophy and law