PHLB11H3 Study Guide - Final Guide: Legal Certainty
Document Summary
On the one hand, law is a human creation. Laws also seem to create obligations- it has authority over us, and can justify punishment. Natural law theories emphasize the authority of law. In order to obligate us, natural law theories argue that law must be linked in some way to morality. This means that what the law is depends in part on morality, rather than just on what legislators do. The challenge is to explain how law depends on legislators alongside its moral dimension. Positivism emphasizes the role of law as a human creation, or posits. The core claim of positivism is that law has no essential relation to morality. Lawmakers can take account of morality in making law, but law as such is independent of morality. The challenge for positivism is to explain our sense that law creates obligations for us. Participant (what the law ought to be)
