The Moral Grounds of Law (On Legal Positivism, Again)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30827/acfs.v56i.21657Keywords:
Legal Positivism, Natural Law Theory, Metaphysical Grounding, Raz's Doctrine of Authoruty, aArguments of ConceivabilityAbstract
This paper deals with the question whether the existence of law necessarily depends on morality. The issue that traditionally confronts doctrines of Natural Law with legal positivism. The paper intends to show that such debate conceals, at least, three different questions, which require diverse answers: 1) The semantic question whether unjust positive regulations are law, 2) the metaphysical question whether the existence of the legal content is grounded on moral facts, and 3) the epistemic question whether the content of law should be identified without resort to moral considerations. It is concluded that the first question is a mere verbal dispute. Some arguments to vindicate the metaphysical thesis are provides. And an affirmative answer to the third question is questioned analyzing Raz’s doctrine of authority, and also, intending to show that the fact of something can be conceived does not entail that this fact is metaphysically possible.
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