Legal Positivism, Law's Normativity, And The Normative Force Of Legal Justification

Introduction:

In “Legal Positivism, Law’s Normativity, and the Normative Force of Legal Justification” by Torben Spaak, he argues that he prefers to have reasons for preferring legal positivist to natural law theory and he also bring ups the laws of normativity. I will argue against a key point in the laws of normativity, regarding legal rights and I will also argue against that we should prefer legal positivist to natural law.

Summary:

Spaak argues about how there are reasons for choosing legal positivist to natural law theory. Spaak introduces natural law and legal positivism and he suggests that there is some distinction between them, but before he does that, he mentions jurisprudence. Jurisprudence is the study, knowledge or science of

Each of the groups ideas of the nature of law contradict each others points. They agree with the law as a system of norms, but they disagree with the relation of law. But before he gets to discussing their points of view, he defines how the natural law theory is understood; which is based on positive law, that was founded by humans for humans; in which humans decide what conduct is right or wrong. They have an universal moral principles that have ethical and legal norms that each human should follow, because it’s a rule. He defines legal positivism, that emphasizes conventional nature of law, that has been socially constructed. Legal positivism goes with positive norms, norms that have been made by legislator or is considered like a common case; it’s not based on divine commandments, reasons or human rights. Positivist don’t judge laws by the questions of justice, but rather they judge by the ways in which the laws have been created. After, legal positivism appeared, classical and contemporary legal positivism came into the picture. Classical legal positivism came into existence by Jeremy Bentham and John Austin, and they say that it maintains in every legal system has a sovereign, (supreme ruler, possessing supreme or ultimate power). Contemporary legal positivism, is completely different from classical; it rejects the idea of a sovereign; they instead have substituted a

Now once again, legal positivism is from philosophy of law that emphasizes the conventional nature of law, that has been socially constructed; and it’s similar to positive norms, and norms are made by legislators or common law. Natural law is based on positive law and there laws founded by humans for humans, in which they have decided what a norm is, and that they should follow that, since they are a community. But before he goes on discussing about the topics, he gives the definition of jurisprudence, and it has no direct concern with the questions of morality, since it falls into a separate category. In other words, it’s basically what is ‘right’ and the ‘duties,’ that would benefit the community as a