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What is law? The usual answer is that the law is a system of norms. But this answer gives us at best half of the story. The law is a way of relating to one another. We do not do this as lovers or friends and not as people who are interested in obtaining guidance from moral insight. In a legal context, we are cast as 'character masks' (Marx), for example, as 'buyer' and 'seller' or 'landlord' and 'tenant'. We expect to have our claims respected simply because the law has given us rights. We do not want to give any other reason for our behavior than the fact that we have a legal right. Backing rights up with coercive threats indicates that we are willing to accept legal obligations unwillingly. This book offers a conceptual reconstruction of the legal relation on the basis of a critique of legal positivism.

What is law? The usual answer is that the law is a system of norms. But this answer gives us at best half of the story. The law is a way of relating to one another. We do not do this as lovers or friends and not as people who are interested in obtaining guidance from moral insight. In a legal context, we are cast as 'character masks' (Marx), for example, as 'buyer' and 'seller' or 'landlord' and 'tenant'. We expect to have our claims respected simply because the law has given us rights. We do not want to give any other reason for our behavior than the fact that we have a legal right. Backing rights up with coercive threats indicates that we are willing to accept legal obligations unwillingly. This book offers a conceptual reconstruction of the legal relation on the basis of a critique of legal positivism.

Originally the constitution was expected to express and channel popular sovereignty. It was the work of freedom, springing from and facilitating collective self-determination. After the Second World W

Originally the constitution was expected to express and channel popular sovereignty. It was the work of freedom, springing from and facilitating collective self-determination. After the Second World W

In an age of widespread cutbacks on social spending, the prospects of social policy generally appear to be grim. If noticeable progress has been recently made in the European Union, then it is in rega

This innovative study examines the authority constituting the European Union. It claims that the type of power constituting a transnational regime transcends traditional forms of constitutional legal

The first volume of the Vienna Lectures on Legal Philosophy illustrates the remarkable scope of contemporary legal philosophy. It introduces methodological questions rooted in national academic discou

The common good and how it can be pursued is a contested question. It touches upon the core principles of a society, and it challenges the political processes, institutional logics, and constitutional