The Concept of Law

The Concept of Law () is the most famous work of the legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart. It was first published in 1961 and develops Hart's theory of legal positivism (the view that laws are rules made by human beings and that there is no inherent or necessary connection between law and morality) within the framework of analytic philosophy. In this work, Hart sets out to write an essay of descriptive sociology and analytical jurisprudence. The Concept of Law provides an explanation to a number of traditional jurisprudential questions such as "what is law?", "must laws be rules?", and "what is the relation between law and morality?". Hart answers these by placing law into a social context while at the same time leaving the capability for rigorous analysis of legal terms, which in effect "awakened English jurisprudence from its comfortable slumbers". As a result Hart's book has remained "one of the most influential text of analytical legal philosophy", as well as "the most successful work of analytical jurisprudence ever to appear in the common law world"

The Concept of Law emerged from a set of lectures Hart delivered in 1952. The lectures were preceded by Hart's Holmes lecture, Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals at Harvard Law School. The book developed a sophisticated view of legal positivism.

Among the ideas developed in the book are:

The starting point for the discussion is Hart's dissatisfaction with John Austin's "Command Theory": a jurisprudential concept that holds that law is command backed by threat and is meant to be ubiquitous in its application. Hart likens Austin's theory to the role of a gunman in a bank and tries to establish the differences between the gunman's orders and those made by law. (For instance, the gunman forces us to obey but we may not feel inclined to obey him. Presumably, obedience to the law comes with a different feeling.)

Hart identifies three such important differences: content, origin, and range. In terms of content, not all laws are imperative or coercive. Some are facilitative, allowing us to create contracts and other legal relations.

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