Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:06:12.329Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

32 - Mark Greenberg on Legal Positivism

from Part VI - Critique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 January 2021

By
Barbara Baum Levenbook
Edited by
Torben Spaak  and
Patricia Mindus
Torben Spaak
Affiliation:
Stockholms Universitet
Patricia Mindus
Affiliation:
Uppsala Universitet, Sweden
Get access

Summary

Baum Levenbook explores another criticism made against legal positivism. As she explains, Mark Greenberg objects to legal positivism, first, that it is a mistake to hold that legal facts are determined solely by social facts and, second, that the content of authoritative pronouncements, such as statutes, is determined by their linguistic content. But, she points out, Greenberg’s first objection is premised on the mistaken assumption that the nature of law requires the connection between legal facts and the determinants of legal facts to be, as Greenberg puts it, ‘rationally intelligible’, and the second objection is based on the equally unwarranted assumption that it is part of the nature of law to operate in such a way as to ensure that legal obligations are genuinely binding.

Keywords

Mark Greenbergtranscendental argumentmoral impact theorylaw interpretationJoseph Raz
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Legal Positivism , pp. 742 - 763
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bix, B. 2014. ‘When Law Becomes Morality: Comments on Mark Greenberg’s Moral Impact Theory of Law’. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2434075.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, J. 2001. The Practice of Principle. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, R. 1977. Taking Rights Seriously. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fuller, L. 1969. The Morality of Law. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Greenberg, M. 2004. ‘How Facts Make Law’. Legal Theory 10: 157–98.Google Scholar
Greenberg, M. 2006. ‘Hartian Positivism and Normative Facts: How Facts Make Law II’. In Hershovitz, S. (ed.). Exploring Law’s Empire. Oxford University Press: 265–90.Google Scholar
Greenberg, M. 2011. ‘The Standard Picture and Its Discontents’. In Green, L. and Leiter, B. (eds.). Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Law, vol. 1. Oxford University Press: 39–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, M. 2014. ‘The Moral Impact Theory of Law’. Yale Law Journal 123: 1288–1342.Google Scholar
Greenberg, M. 2017. ‘The Moral Impact Theory, the Dependence View, and Natural Law’. In Duke, G. and George, R. (eds.). Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Jurisprudence. Cambridge University Press: 275–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. 1994. The Concept of Law. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hershovitz, S. 2015. ‘The End of Jurisprudence’. Yale Law Journal 124: 1160–1204.Google Scholar
Hohfeld, W. 1978. Fundamental Legal Conceptions. Ed. Corbin, A.. Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Leiter, B. 2009. ‘Explaining Theoretical Disagreement’. University of Chicago Law Review 76: 1215–50.Google Scholar
Leiter, B. 2014. ‘Some Questions and Doubts about Greenberg’s “Moral Impact Theory of Law”’. https://leiterreports.typepad.com/brianleiterlaw/2014/05/some-questions-and-doubts-about-greenbergs-moral-impact-theory-of-law.html.Google Scholar
Levenbook, B. B. 2000. ‘The Meaning of a Precedent’. Legal Theory 6: 185–240.Google Scholar
Levenbook, B. B. 2013. ‘How to Hold the Social Fact Thesis: A Reply to Greenberg and Toh’. In Green, L. and Leiter, B. (eds.). Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Law, vol. 2. Oxford University Press: 75–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levenbook, B. B. 2015. ‘Dworkin’s Theoretical Disagreement Argument’. Philosophy Compass 10: 1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyons, D. 1973. ‘On Formal Justice’. Cornell Law Review 58: 833–61.Google Scholar
Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, State and Utopia. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Raz, J. 1979. ‘Legal Positivism and the Source of Law’. In Raz, J.. The Authority of Law. Oxford University Press: 37–52.Google Scholar
Raz, J. 2009a. ‘On the Nature of Law’. In Raz, J.. Between Authority and Interpretation. Oxford University Press: 91–125.Google Scholar
Raz, J. 2009b. ‘Intention in Interpretation’. In Raz, J.. Between Authority and Interpretation. Oxford University Press: 265–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, A. 2016. ‘North Carolina Is No Longer Classified as a Democracy’. New Observer. www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article122593759.html.Google Scholar
Reynolds, A. 2018. ‘North Carolina’s Democracy Was Bad at the Start of 2017. A Year Later It’s Much Worse’. New Observer. www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article198165644.html.Google Scholar
Schauer, F. 1991. Playing by the Rules. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sellars, W. 1991. ‘Reply to Aune’. Wilfrid F. Sellars Papers. Archives of Scientific Philosophy, Archives and Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System: 1–19.Google Scholar
Shapiro, S. 2007. ‘The “Hart-Dworkin” Debate: A Short Guide for the Perplexed’. In Ripstein, A. (ed.). Ronald Dworkin. Cambridge University Press: 22–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, S. 2011. Legality. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Simmons, A. J. 2001. Justification and Legitimacy: Essays on Rights and Obligations. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×