Positivism as Opposed to What? Law and the Moral Idea of Right

Abstract

I ask what a proper critical target for "legal positivism" might be. I argue that utilitarian moral theory (and more generally fully directive moral theories) are unacknowledged motivations for legal positivism. Contemporary debate about "the nature of law" is, historically speaking, much more of a footnote to utilitarianism than has been recognized.

Keywords: positivism, nature of law, utilitarianism, natural law, Hart, Austin, Kant