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The Long Arc of Legality: Hobbes, Kelsen, Hart

The Long Arc of Legality: Hobbes, Kelsen, Hart

Author: David Dyzenhaus
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781316518052

Published In: January 2022
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only
Paperback Edition ISBN: 9781009048866

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The Long Arc of Legality breaks the current deadlock in philosophy of law between legal positivism and natural law by showing that any understanding of law as a matter of authority must account for the interaction of enacted law with fundamental principles of legality. This interaction conditions law's content so that officials have the moral resources to answer the legal subject's question, 'But, how can that be law for me?' David Dyzenhaus brings Thomas Hobbes and Hans Kelsen into a dialogue with H. L. A. Hart, showing that philosophy of law must work with the idea of legitimate authority and its basis in the social contract. He argues that the legality of international law and constitutional law are integral to the main tasks of philosophy of law, and that legal theory must attend both to the politics of legal space and to the way in which law provides us with a 'public conscience'.

Spans three legal philosophers whose thinking informs the current state of the philosophy of law, from Hobbes (1651) through Kelsen (1920s) to the more recent legacy of Hart (1951)
Unites legal and political philosophy, showing how different disciplines interact without losing what is distinctive about each
Attempts to break the current deadlock in legal philosophical debate regarding the puzzle of law's authority: that law is both a matter of right and might

1. The Puzzle of Very Unjust Law I: Hart and Dworkin

2. The Puzzle of Very Unjust Law II: Hobbes

3. The Constitution of Legal Authority/The Authority of Legal Constitutions

4. The Janus-Faced Constitution

5. The Politics of Legal Space

6. Legality's Promise

Appendix I. Exclusive and Inclusive Legal Positivism

Appendix II. Kantian Private Law Theory

Appendix III. John Finnis and 'Schmittean Logic'