Abstract
In this essay, I argue that the authorization of coercive enforcement mechanisms is a conceptually necessary feature of law. I ground the argument in (1) the Hartian claim that the sense of “law” requiring explication picks out municipal legal systems in the modern state; (2) widely accepted Razian claims about how our legal practices construct the content of our legal concepts; (3) claims showing the ubiquity and centrality of coercive enforcement mechanisms in every paradigm instance of law we have ever known; and (4) logical difficulties arising in connection with explaining legal normativity in a system without such mechanisms. In the course of doing so, I respond to problematic society-of-angels thought experiments.
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