Law, Morality, Art, the Works

(i) What is the law on such-and-such? (ii) What is the most fundamental law of a particular legal system? (iii) In virtue of what is a certain rule the most fundamental law of a particular legal system? And (iv) what facts need to exist in a community of people for that community to have laws? According to the orthodox position in contemporary Anglophone legal philosophy, the correct answer to (iv) would enumerate only certain behavioral and psychological facts, and these facts would be those in virtue of which the other three questions are ultimately answered. In reaction to this orthodoxy, this chapter argues that a very plausible answer to (iv) would be neutral in its implications for (i)–(iii), and, further argues that contents of laws are unlikely to be determined solely by what legal officials or others think and do.