PHL271H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Gustav Radbruch
Document Summary
Politically unreliable were thrown out of universities in the time that the nazis came to power. There was a huge turnover in the german universitiesso the people were forced to go abroad to study. Positivism - the theory of law that tries to explain what law is without appealing to any ideas of morality. Positivism is the view that a law is a law". Something is a law and a person/agent has the power to enforce it. Law can have any content whatsoever because there is no moral restriction on what can be law. The only limit is what the sovereign/ruler/enactor enforces. Positivism tells you that if you don"t do s then you"ll suffer some unpleasant conse- quence or you"ll be forced to. Doesn"t tell you why it is your obligation. How do you de- rive legal ought from a fact. It tells you what you"re compelled to do
