Comparison of Two Approaches to Methodology of Legal Theory

Abstract

This paper focuses on one of the main arguments in contemporary Anglo-American legal circles: what is the essence of legal theory? This paper is divided into three parts: the first part combs the methodology approach of descriptive method theory, represented by Hart, Raz and, more recently, Julie Dickson, and sums up its three important propositions; the second part summarizes the criticism of the descriptive theory by non-positivism scholars such as Dworkin, Finnis and Stephen Perry; in the third part I put forward my conclusion on the basis of the first two parts: the theory of descriptive law is not a successful legal theory, which should be a theory based on descriptive and normative methodology.