true and false

Question 1

All legal positivists accept the proposition that L(c)(t) that p if and only if p (where L stands for ‘It is the law of’, c stands for some country, t stands for some moment in time, and p stands for some deontic proposition such as: ‘Parents ought not to smack their children.’).

Answer 1

false

Question 2

In The Province of Jurisprudence Determined John Austin claims that the notion of a command provides the key to jurisprudence because all laws properly so called, and thus also all positive laws, are (a species of) commands.

Answer 2

true

Question 3

As Austin explains the notion of a command in The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, it is a necessary condition for A to have commanded B to do X that A expressed (or intimated or signified) to B his (i.e. A’s) wish or desire that B do X.

Answer 3

true

Question 4

As Austin explains the notion of a command in The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, it is a sufficient condition for A to have commanded B to do X that A expressed (or intimated or signified) to B his (i.e. A’s) wish or desire that B do X.

Answer 4

false

Question 5

In The Province of Jurisprudence Determined Austin claims that command and duty are correlative terms. This, as he explains, means that it is a sufficient condition for A to have imposed a duty on B to refrain from doing X that A expressed (or intimated or signified) to B his (i.e. A’s) wish or desire that B refrain from doing X.

Answer 5

false

Question 6

In The Province of Jurisprudence Determined Austin claims that every positive law is set by a sovereign person or a sovereign body of persons.

Answer 6

true

Question 7

As Austin explains the notion of sovereignty in The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, it is a sufficient condition for a person of body of persons to be the sovereign in a given society that the bulk of the society are in a habit of obedience or submission to that person or body of persons.

Answer 7

false

Question 8

In The Concept of Law HLA Hart raises a variety of objections to Austin’s command theory. One of them is that the law of any community includes both rules that impose duties (for example rules prohibiting certain crimes) and rules that confer powers (for example rules enabling contracts), but that Austin’s command theory can only recognise the latter kind of rule, i.e. power-conferring ones, as legal rules.

Answer 8

false

Question 9

Another objection to Austin’s command theory which Hart raises in The Concept of Law concerns Austin’s account of obligation (or duty). According to Hart, Austin’s account entails that, where A orders B to hand over his money and threatens to shoot him if he does not comply, A will have imposed an obligation on B to pay. But this, says Hart, would certainly be to misdescribe the situation.

Answer 9

true

Question 10

In The Concept of Law Hart claims that to understand the general idea of obligation we must turn to a different social situation which, unlike the gunman situation, includes the existence of social rules.

Answer 10

true

Question 11

As Hart explains the notion of a social rule in The Concept of Law, social rules and social habits have nothing in common – for whereas a social habit of doing X exists whenever there is a convergent regularity of doing X, a social rule requiring the doing of X exists whenever there is a hostile reaction towards those who deviate from the doing of X and a critical reflective attitude concerning the doing of X.

Answer 11

false

Question 12

In The Concept of Law Hart claims that it is a sufficient condition for a person to be under an obligation to do X that there exists a social rule requiring that he or she do X.

Answer 12

false

Question 13

In The Concept of Law Hart argues that a society which lives by primary rules (of obligation) alone will suffer three defects, which he calls the defects of uncertainty, the static character of the rules, and the inefficiency of its diffused social pressure.

Answer 13

true

Question 14

In The Concept of Law Hart claims that each of the three defects mentioned immediately above can be remedied by supplementing the primary rules (of obligation) with secondary rules: more specifically, uncertainty is to be remedied by the introduction of rules of adjudication, the static character of the primary rules is to be remedied by the introduction of rules of change, and the inefficiency of its diffused social pressure is to be remedied by the introduction of a rule of recognition.

Answer 14

false

Question 15

In the ‘Postscript’ to The Concept of Law Hart admitted that he no longer regarded his account of social rules as a sound explanation of either morality or enacted legal rules, but insisted that it did provide a sound explanation of the rule of recognition.

Answer 15

true

Question 16

In ‘Hard Cases’ Ronald Dworkin claims that a precedent’s influence on future decisions necessarily is restricted to its ‘enactment force’

Answer 16

false

Question 17

In ‘Hard Cases’ Dworkin claims that the difference between an ‘embedded’ and a ‘corrigible’ mistake is that the former, but not the latter, retains its ‘gravitational force’.

Answer 17

false

Question 18

In ‘Hard Cases’ Dworkin claims that a judge deciding a hard common law case may be required to construct a scheme of principles that provides a coherent justification for all common law precedents and, so far as these are to be justified on principle, constitutional and statutory provisions as well.

Answer 18

true

Question 19

In Law’s Empire Ronald Dworkin asserts that ‘creative interpretation’ is not ‘conversational’ but ‘constructive’.

Answer 19

true

Question 20

In Law’s Empire Dworkin asserts that, while ‘conversational’ interpretation gives works of arts and social practices their conventional meaning, ‘constructive’ interpretation gives them the meaning they were intended to have.

Answer 20

false

Question 21

The ‘conception’ of law which Dworkin defends in Law’s Empire, which he calls ‘law as integrity’, requires ‘constructive’ interpretation of a community’s legal practice or legal record (including its statutes and precedents), and this form of interpretation has two dimensions to it, which Dworkin calls ‘fit’ and ‘justification’.

Answer 21

true

Question 22

In Law’s Empire Dworkin defends ‘law as integrity’ against two rival ‘conceptions’ of law, namely ‘conventionalism’ and ‘legal pragmatism’, by invoking a distinct political virtue beside justice and fairness, which he calls ‘political integrity’. According to Dworkin, our acceptance of this third virtue is shown by our intuitive rejection of what he calls ‘checkerboard’ laws or solutions.

Answer 22

true

Question 23

In ‘The Model of Rules’ Ronald Dworkin attributes three tenets to legal positivism, one of which is that all laws are commands, another of which is that all legal duties are sanction-based.

Answer 23

false

Question 24

In ‘Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals’ HLA Hart denies that general words can be said to have ‘standard instances’ or a ‘core of settled meaning’.

Answer 24

false

Question 25

In ‘Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals’ Hart expresses the view that, for every legal rule, there will be a ‘penumbra’ of debatable cases in which the rule is neither obviously applicable nor obviously inapplicable.

Answer 25

true

Question 26

In ‘Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals’ Hart expresses the view that the application of a legal rule to a case falling in the ‘penumbral area’ cannot be a matter of logical deduction.

Answer 26

true