Celebrated for their conceptual clarity, titles in the Clarendon Law Series offer concise, accessible overviews of major fields of law and legal thought. This chapter first explains the open texture of law, which shows that there are, indeed, areas of conduct where much must be left to be developed by courts or officials, striking a balance between competing interests that vary in weight from case to case. It then discusses the varieties of rule-scepticism, finality and infallibility in judicial decision, and uncertainty in the rule of recognition.
Chapter
VII. Formalism and Rule-Scepticism
H. L. A. Hart
Book
Celebrated for their conceptual clarity, titles in the Clarendon Law Series offer concise, accessible overviews of major fields of law and legal thought. The Concept of Law is an important work of legal philosophy. It was first published fifty years ago. This book includes a new introduction that sets the book in the context of subsequent developments in social and political philosophy, clarifying misunderstandings of Hart's project and highlighting central tensions and problems in the work. Topics covered include: sovereign and subject, the law as the unions of primary and secondary rules, formalism, rule-scepticism, justice, morality, and international law.
