Book contents
- The Long Arc of Legality
- The Long Arc of Legality
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The Puzzle of Very Unjust Law I
- 2 The Puzzle of Very Unjust Law II
- 3 The Constitution of Legal Authority / The Authority of Legal Constitutions
- 4 The Janus-Faced Constitution
- 5 The Politics of Legal Space
- 6 Legality’s Promise
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - The Puzzle of Very Unjust Law II
Hobbes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2022
- The Long Arc of Legality
- The Long Arc of Legality
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The Puzzle of Very Unjust Law I
- 2 The Puzzle of Very Unjust Law II
- 3 The Constitution of Legal Authority / The Authority of Legal Constitutions
- 4 The Janus-Faced Constitution
- 5 The Politics of Legal Space
- 6 Legality’s Promise
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Most readers acquainted with Hobbes will think that a chapter on Hobbes and the puzzle of very unjust law must be rather short. After all, Hobbes is infamous for arguing that the law the sovereign makes not only can have any content but also that the content it happens to have is by definition just. He thus seems to have offered a radical version of a one-system theory about the relationship between law and morality in which morality is collapsed into the content of the positive law of a particular jurisdiction. Moreover, in a well-known passage, he explicitly denied the existence of such a thing as fundamental law, thus excluding a role for fundamental principles of legality in his legal theory.1 In short, he seemed to rule out the kind of puzzle of very unjust law which we saw in Chapter 1 flummoxed both Hart and Dworkin.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Long Arc of LegalityHobbes, Kelsen, Hart, pp. 88 - 148Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022