The Long Arc of Legality: Hobbes, Kelsen, Hart

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