Morals and the Meaning of Laws

Abstract

Abstract Inclusive positivism has now been shown to be a coherent, plausible descriptive-explanatory theory of law which accords political morality a role in determining the existence and content of valid laws. As inclusive positivism suggests, principles of political morality are among the possible, though by no means necessary, bases for determinations of law. There is nothing in the concept of law itself which requires that political morality serve a determinative role. If it does serve some such role, this is only because the community has, through its variable legal practices, made this choice, and that choice could have been and might yet be different. If all this is so, then a question naturally arises: Should our legal practices assign political morality the roles which inclusive positivism warrants as conceivable? Or should our practices be such as to make the existence and content of laws one thing, their merit or demerit another thing altogether? As noted earlier, Neil MacCormick advocates the latter option. He wishes not only to show that there is considerable merit in (exclusive) legal positivism.