Filozofia polityczna a pozytywistyczna teoria prawa

Abstract

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND POSITIVISTIC LEGAL THEORY

The purpose of the paper is to explore the question whether the positivistic legal theory may be developed without any assumptions pertaining to political philosophy. The legal theory of H.L. Hart is examined. The author comes to the conclusion that Hart notwithstanding the declaration that his theory is purely descriptive adopts certain tacit evaluative assumptions, and, therefore does not maintain absolute neutrality vis-a-vis political values. Hart’s assumption are, however, minimal and therefore uncontroversial. This causes that his theory is not able to propose asatisfactory explanation of the normativity of law. Various understandings of the role of alegal theory in such an explanation are discussed.