Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart (18 July 190719 December 1992), known simply as H. L. A. Hart, was an English
legal philosopher
Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature of law and law's relationship to other systems of norms, especially ethics and political philosophy. It asks questions like "What is law?", "What are the criteria for legal val ...
. He was
Professor of Jurisprudence at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
and the Principal of
Brasenose College
Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the m ...
, Oxford. His most famous work is ''
The Concept of Law
''The Concept of Law'' is a 1961 book by the legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart and his most famous work. ''The Concept of Law'' presents Hart's theory of legal positivism—the view that laws are rules made by humans and that there is ...
'' (1961; 3rd edition, 2012), which has been hailed as "the most important work of legal philosophy written in the twentieth century". He is considered one of the world's foremost legal philosophers in the twentieth century, alongside
Hans Kelsen
Hans Kelsen (; ; October 11, 1881 – April 19, 1973) was an Austrian jurist, legal philosopher and political philosopher. He was the author of the 1920 Austrian Constitution, which to a very large degree is still valid today. Due to the rise ...
.
Early life and education
Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart was born on 18 July 1907,
the son of Rose Samson Hart and Simeon Hart, in
Harrogate
Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor at ...
, to which his parents had moved from the
East End of London
The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...
. His father was a
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
ish tailor of German and Polish origin; his mother, of Polish origin, daughter of successful retailers in the clothing trade, handled customer relations and the finances of their firm. Hart had an elder brother, Albert, and a younger sister, Sybil.
Hart was educated at
Cheltenham College
("Work Conquers All")
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public schoolIndependent School Day and Boarding School
, religion = Church of England
, president =
, head_label = Head
, head = Nicola Huggett
...
,
Bradford Grammar School
Bradford Grammar School (BGS) is a co-educational independent day school located in Frizinghall, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England.
Entrance is by examination, except for the sixth form, where admission is based on GCSE results. The school ...
and at
New College, Oxford
New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at th ...
. He took a first in
classical greats in 1929.
Hart became a
barrister
A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...
and practised successfully at the Chancery Bar from 1932 to 1940. He was good friends with
Richard (later Lord) Wilberforce,
Douglas Jay
Douglas Patrick Thomas Jay, Baron Jay, PC (23 March 1907 – 6 March 1996) was a British Labour Party politician.
Early life
Educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, Jay won the Chancellor's English Essay in 1927 and gained a ...
, and Christopher Cox, among others. He received a Harmsworth Scholarship to the
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...
and also wrote literary journalism for the periodical ''
John O'London's Weekly
''John O'London's Weekly'' was a weekly literary magazine that was published by George Newnes Ltd of London between 1919 and 1954. In 1960 it was briefly brought back into circulation (writer Peter Green's biography lists him as having been fil ...
''.
World War II
During the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Hart worked with
MI5
The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...
, a division of British military intelligence concerned with unearthing spies who had penetrated Britain, where he renewed Oxford friendships including working with the philosophers
Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle (19 August 1900 – 6 October 1976) was a British philosopher, principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "ghost in the machine." He was a representative of the generation of British ord ...
and
Stuart Hampshire
Sir Stuart Newton Hampshire (1 October 1914 – 13 June 2004) was an English philosopher, literary critic and university administrator. He was one of the antirationalist Oxford thinkers who gave a new direction to moral and political thought ...
. He worked closely with
Dick White
Sir Dick Goldsmith White, (20 December 1906 – 21 February 1993) was a British intelligence officer. He was Director General (DG) of MI5 from 1953 to 1956, and Head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1956 to 1968.
Early life
Whit ...
, later head of MI5 and then of
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
. Hart worked at
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
and was a colleague of the mathematician and codebreaker
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical com ...
.
Hart's war work took him on occasion to MI5 offices at
Blenheim Palace
Blenheim Palace (pronounced ) is a country house in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. It is the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough and the only non-royal, non- episcopal country house in England to hold the title of palace. The palace, on ...
, family home of the
Dukes of Marlborough
Duke of Marlborough (pronounced ) is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created by Queen Anne in 1702 for John Churchill, 1st Earl of Marlborough (1650–1722), the noted military leader. In historical texts, unqualified use of the tit ...
and the place where
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
had been born. He enjoyed telling the story that there he was able to read the diaries of
Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough
Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, Princess of Mindelheim, Countess of Nellenburg (née Jenyns, spelt Jennings in most modern references; 5 June 1660 (Old Style) – 18 October 1744), was an English courtier who rose to be one of th ...
, wife of the founder of the dynasty
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
General John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1st Prince of Mindelheim, 1st Count of Nellenburg, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, (26 May 1650 – 16 June 1722 O.S.) was an English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reign ...
. Hart's wit and humanity are demonstrated by the fact that he particularly enjoyed the passage where Sarah tells that John had been away for a long time, had arrived suddenly, and "enjoyed me straight way in his boots". Another incident of life at Blenheim which Hart enjoyed recounting was that he shared an office with one of the famous Cambridge spies,
Anthony Blunt
Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983), styled Sir Anthony Blunt KCVO from 1956 to November 1979, was a leading British art historian and Soviet spy.
Blunt was professor of art history at the University of London, dire ...
, a fellow member of MI5. Hart wondered which of the papers on his desk Blunt had managed to read and to pass on to his Soviet controllers.
Hart did not return to his legal practice after the war, preferring instead to accept the offer of a teaching fellowship (in philosophy, not law) at New College, Oxford. Hart cites
J. L. Austin
John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech acts.
Austin pointed out that we u ...
as particularly influential during this time.
The two jointly taught from 1948 a seminar on 'Legal and Moral Responsibility'. Among Hart's publications at this time were the essays 'A Logician's Fairytale', 'Is There Knowledge by Acquaintance?', 'Law and Fact' and 'The Ascription of Responsibility and Rights'.
Academic career
In 1952, Hart was elected
Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford and was a fellow at
University College, Oxford
University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the univer ...
, from 1952 to 1973.
It was in the summer of that year that he began writing his most famous book, ''
The Concept of Law
''The Concept of Law'' is a 1961 book by the legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart and his most famous work. ''The Concept of Law'' presents Hart's theory of legal positivism—the view that laws are rules made by humans and that there is ...
'', though it was not published until 1961. In the interim, he published another major work, ''Causation in the Law'' (with Tony Honoré) (1959). He was president of the
Aristotelian Society from 1959 to 1960. He gave the 1962 Master-Mind Lecture.
Hart married
Jenifer Fischer Williams, a civil servant, later a senior civil servant, in the Home Office and, still later, Oxford historian at
St Anne's College (specialising in the history of the police). Jenifer Hart was, for some years in the mid-1930s and fading out totally by decade's end, a 'sleeper' member of the
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...
. Three decades later she was interviewed by
Peter Wright as having been in a position to have passed information to the Soviets, and to Wright, MI5's official spy hunter, she explained her situation; Wright took no action. In fact her work as civil servant was in fields such as family policy and so would have been of no interest to the Soviets. The person who recruited her,
Bernard Floud
Bernard Francis Castle Floud (22 March 1915 – 10 October 1967) was a British farmer, television company executive and politician. He was the father of the economic historian Sir Roderick Floud.
Early life
He was born in Epsom, Surrey, the son o ...
, interviewed by Wright shortly after, maintained that he was unable to remember ever having done so. Nor was her husband in a position to convey to her information of use, despite vague newspaper suggestions, given the sharp separation of his work from that of foreign affairs and its focus on German spies and British turncoats rather than on matters related to the Soviet ally. In fact, Hart was anticommunist.
The marriage contained "incompatible personalities", though it lasted right to the end of their lives and gave joy to both at times. Hart did joke with his daughter at one point, however, that "
e trouble with this marriage is that one of us doesn't like sex and the other doesn't like food", and according to LSE law professor Nicola Lacey, Hart was, by his own account, a "suppressed homosexual". Jenifer Hart was believed by her contemporaries to have had an affair of long duration with
Isaiah Berlin
Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks ...
, a close friend of Hart's. Jenifer published her memoirs under the title ''Ask Me No More'' in 1998. The Harts had four children, including, late in life, a son who was disabled, the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck having deprived his brain of oxygen.
Hart's granddaughter
Mojo Mathers
Mojo Celeste Mathers (née Minrod, born 23 November 1966) is a New Zealand politician and a former Member of Parliament (MP) for the Green Party. She became known through her involvement with the Malvern Hills Protection Society and helped pr ...
became New Zealand's first deaf Member of Parliament in 2011.
There is a description of the Harts' household by the writer on religion
Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong (born 14 November 1944) is a British author and commentator of Irish Catholic descent known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and ...
, who lodged with them for a time to help take care of their disabled son. The description appears in her book ''The Spiral Staircase''.
Hart retired from the Chair of Jurisprudence in 1969 and was succeeded by
Ronald Dworkin
Ronald Myles Dworkin (; December 11, 1931 – February 14, 2013) was an American philosopher, jurist, and scholar of United States constitutional law. At the time of his death, he was Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New Yo ...
. He subsequently became principal of
Brasenose College, Oxford
Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the mi ...
.
Hart died in Oxford on 19 December 1992, aged 85.
He is buried there in
Wolvercote Cemetery
Wolvercote Cemetery is a cemetery in the parish of Wolvercote and district of Cutteslowe in Oxford, England. Its main entrance is on Banbury Road and it has a side entrance in Five Mile Drive. It has a funeral chapel, public toilets and a small a ...
, which also contains
Isaiah Berlin
Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks ...
's grave.
Hart's students
Many of Hart's former students have become important legal, moral, and political philosophers, including
Brian Barry
Brian Barry, (7 August 1936 – 10 March 2009) was a moral and political philosopher. He was educated at the Queen's College, Oxford, obtaining the degrees of B.A. and D.Phil. under the direction of H. L. A. Hart.
Along with David Braybrooke ...
,
Ronald Dworkin
Ronald Myles Dworkin (; December 11, 1931 – February 14, 2013) was an American philosopher, jurist, and scholar of United States constitutional law. At the time of his death, he was Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New Yo ...
,
John Finnis
John Mitchell Finnis, , (born 28 July 1940) is an Australian legal philosopher, jurist and scholar specializing in jurisprudence and the philosophy of law. He is the Biolchini Family Professor of Law, emeritus, at Notre Dame Law School and a P ...
,
John Gardner,
Kent Greenawalt,
Peter Hacker
Peter Michael Stephan Hacker (born 15 July 1939) is a British philosopher.
His principal expertise is in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophical anthropology. He is known for his detailed exegesis and interpretatio ...
,
David Hodgson,
Neil MacCormick
Sir Donald Neil MacCormick (27 May 1941 – 5 April 2009) was a Scottish legal philosopher and politician. He was Regius Professor of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations at the University of Edinburgh from 1972 until 2008. He was a ...
,
Joseph Raz
Joseph Raz (; he, יוסף רז; born Zaltsman; 21 March 19392 May 2022) was an Israeli legal, moral and political philosopher. He was an advocate of legal positivism and is known for his conception of perfectionist liberalism. Raz spent mos ...
,
Chin Liew Ten and
William Twining
William Lawrence Twining (born 22 September 1934) is the Emeritus Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London, having held the post until 1996. He is a leading member of the Law in Context movement, and has contributed especiall ...
. Hart also had a strong influence on the young
John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1 ...
in the 1950s, when Rawls was a visiting scholar at Oxford shortly after finishing his PhD.
Philosophical method
Hart strongly influenced the application of methods in his version of Anglo-American positive law to jurisprudence and the
philosophy of law
Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature of law and law's relationship to other systems of norms, especially ethics and political philosophy. It asks questions like "What is law?", "What are the criteria for legal vali ...
in the English-speaking world. Influenced by
John Austin John Austin may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* John P. Austin (1906–1997), American set decorator
* Johnny Austin (1910–1983), American musician
* John Austin (author) (fl. 1940s), British novelist
Military
* John Austin (soldier) (180 ...
,
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considere ...
and
Hans Kelsen
Hans Kelsen (; ; October 11, 1881 – April 19, 1973) was an Austrian jurist, legal philosopher and political philosopher. He was the author of the 1920 Austrian Constitution, which to a very large degree is still valid today. Due to the rise ...
, Hart brought the tools of analytic, and especially linguistic, philosophy to bear on the central problems of legal theory.
Hart's method combined the careful analysis of twentieth-century analytic philosophy with the jurisprudential tradition of
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_February_1747.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.htm ...
, the great English legal, political, and moral philosopher. Hart's conception of law had parallels to the
Pure Theory of Law formulated by Austrian legal philosopher
Hans Kelsen
Hans Kelsen (; ; October 11, 1881 – April 19, 1973) was an Austrian jurist, legal philosopher and political philosopher. He was the author of the 1920 Austrian Constitution, which to a very large degree is still valid today. Due to the rise ...
, though Hart rejected several distinctive features of Kelsen's theory.
Significant in the differences between Hart and Kelsen was the emphasis on the British version of positive law theory which Hart was defending as opposed to the Continental version of positive law theory which Kelsen was defending. This was studied in the University of Toronto Law Journal in an article titled "Leaving the Hart-Dworkin Debate" which maintained that Hart insisted in his book ''The Concept of Law'' on the expansive reading of positive law theory to include philosophical and sociological domains of assessment rather than the more focused attention of Kelsen who considered Continental positive law theory as more limited to the domain of jurisprudence itself.
Hart drew, among others, on
Glanville Williams
Glanville Llewelyn Williams (15 February 1911 – 10 April 1997) was a Welsh legal scholar who was the Rouse Ball Professor of English Law at the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1978 and the Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University ...
who had demonstrated his legal philosophy in a five-part article, "Language and the Law" and in a paper, "International Law and the Controversy Concerning the Word 'Law'". In the paper on international law, he sharply attacked the many jurists and international lawyers who had debated whether international law was "really" law. They had been wasting everyone's time, for the question was not a factual one, the many differences between municipal and international law being undeniable, but was simply one of conventional verbal usage, about which individual theorists could please themselves, but had no right to dictate to others.
This approach was to be refined and developed by Hart in the last chapter of ''The Concept of Law'' (1961), which showed how the use in respect of different social phenomena of an abstract word like ''law'' reflected the fact that these phenomena each shared, without necessarily all possessing in common, some distinctive features. Glanville had himself said as much when editing a student text on jurisprudence and he had adopted essentially the same approach to "The Definition of Crime".
''The Concept of Law''
Hart's most famous work is ''The Concept of Law'', first published in 1961, and with a second edition (including a new postscript) published posthumously in 1994. The book emerged from a set of lectures that Hart began to deliver in 1952, and it is presaged by his Holmes lecture, ''Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals'', delivered at
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.
Each class ...
. ''The Concept of Law'' developed a sophisticated view of legal positivism. Among the many ideas developed in this book are:
* A critique of
John Austin's theory that law is the command of the sovereign backed by the threat of punishment.
* A distinction between primary and secondary legal rules, such that a primary rule governs conduct, such as criminal law, and secondary rules govern the procedural methods by which primary rules are enforced, prosecuted and so on. Hart specifically enumerates three secondary rules; they are:
:* The
Rule of Recognition
A central part of H.L.A. Hart's theory on legal positivism, in any legal system, the rule of recognition is a master meta-rule underlying any legal system that defines the common identifying test for legal validity (or "what counts as law") wit ...
, the rule by which any member of society may check to discover what the primary rules of the society are. In a simple society, Hart states, the recognition rule might only be what is written in a sacred book or what is said by a ruler. Hart claimed the concept of rule of recognition as an evolution from
Hans Kelsen
Hans Kelsen (; ; October 11, 1881 – April 19, 1973) was an Austrian jurist, legal philosopher and political philosopher. He was the author of the 1920 Austrian Constitution, which to a very large degree is still valid today. Due to the rise ...
's "''
Grundnorm
Basic norm (german: Grundnorm) is a concept in the '' Pure Theory of Law'' created by Hans Kelsen, a jurist and legal philosopher. Kelsen used this word to denote the basic norm, order, or rule that forms an underlying basis for a legal system. ...
''", or "basic norm".
:* The Rule of Change, the rule by which existing primary rules might be created, altered or deleted.
:* The Rule of Adjudication, the rule by which the society might determine when a rule has been violated and prescribe a remedy.
* A distinction between the internal and external points of view of law and rules, close to (and influenced by)
Max Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...
's distinction between legal and sociological perspectives in description of law.
* A concept of "open-textured" terms in law, along the lines of Wittgenstein and Waisman, and "defeasible" terms (later famously disavowed): both are ideas popular in
Artificial intelligence and law
Legal informatics is an area within information science.
The American Library Association defines informatics as "the study of the structure and properties of information, as well as the application of technology to the organization, storage, ...
* A late reply (published as a postscript to the second edition) to
Ronald Dworkin
Ronald Myles Dworkin (; December 11, 1931 – February 14, 2013) was an American philosopher, jurist, and scholar of United States constitutional law. At the time of his death, he was Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New Yo ...
, a rights-oriented legal philosopher (and Hart's successor at Oxford) who criticised Hart's version of legal positivism in ''
Taking Rights Seriously'' (1977), ''A Matter of Principle'' (1985) and ''
Law's Empire
''Law's Empire'' is a 1986 text in legal philosophy by Ronald Dworkin, in which the author continues his criticism of the philosophy of legal positivism as promoted by H.L.A. Hart during the middle to late 20th century. The book introduces Dwork ...
'' (1986).
Other work
With
Tony Honoré
Anthony Maurice Honoré, (30 March 1921 – 26 February 2019) was a British lawyer and jurist, known for his work on ownership, causation and Roman law.John Gardne''Tony Honoré as Teacher and Mentor: A Personal Memoir''; read 1 April 2014.
B ...
, Hart wrote and published ''Causation in the Law'' (1959, second edition 1985), which is regarded as one of the important academic discussions of causation in the legal context. The early chapters deal philosophically with the concept of cause and are clearly the work of Hart, while later chapters deal with individual cases in English law and are clearly his co-author's.
As a result of his famous debate with
Patrick Devlin, Baron Devlin
Patrick Arthur Devlin, Baron Devlin, PC, FBA (25 November 1905 – 9 August 1992) was a British judge and legal philosopher. The second-youngest English High Court judge in the 20th century, he served as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary from ...
, on the role of the criminal law in enforcing moral norms, Hart wrote ''Law, Liberty and Morality'' (1963), which consisted of three lectures he gave at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
. He also wrote ''The Morality of the Criminal Law'' (1965). Hart said that he believed Devlin's view of Mill's harm principle as it related to the decriminalisation of homosexuality was "perverse".
[Hart. H. L. A. "Immorality and Treason", ''The Listener'' (July 30, 1959). 162–163. Reprinted in Wasserstrom, Richard A. (ed.). ''Morality and the Law''. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1971.] He later stated that he believed the reforms to the law regarding homosexuality that followed the
Wolfenden report
The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (better known as the Wolfenden report, after Sir John Wolfenden, the chairman of the committee) was published in the United Kingdom on 4 September 1957 after a suc ...
"didn't go far enough". Despite this, Hart reported later that he got on well personally with Devlin.
Hart gave lectures to the Labour Party on closing tax loopholes which were being used by the "
super-rich". Hart considered himself to be "on the Left, the non-communist Left", and expressed animosity towards
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
.
Writings
* "The Ascription of Responsibility and Rights", ''Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society'' (1949)
* ''Definition and Theory in Jurisprudence'' (1953)
* ''Causation in the Law'' (with
Tony Honoré
Anthony Maurice Honoré, (30 March 1921 – 26 February 2019) was a British lawyer and jurist, known for his work on ownership, causation and Roman law.John Gardne''Tony Honoré as Teacher and Mentor: A Personal Memoir''; read 1 April 2014.
B ...
) (1959)
* ''The Concept of Law'' (1961; 2nd edn 1994; 3rd edn 2012)
* ''Law, Liberty and Morality'' (1963)
* ''The Morality of the Criminal Law'' (1964)
* ''Punishment and Responsibility'' (1968)
* ''Essays on Bentham: Studies in Jurisprudence and Political Theory'' (1982)
* ''Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy'' (1983)
''
Festschrift
In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...
''
* ''Law, Morality, and Society: Essays in Honour of H. L. A. Hart'', edited by P. M. S. Hacker and Joseph Raz (1977)
See also
*
Hart–Dworkin debate
The Hart–Dworkin debate is a debate in legal philosophy between H. L. A. Hart and Ronald Dworkin. At the heart of the debate lies a Dworkinian critique of Hartian legal positivism, specifically, the theory presented in Hart's book ''T ...
*
Hart–Fuller debate The Hart–Fuller debate is an exchange between the American law professor Lon L. Fuller and his English counterpart H. L. A. Hart, published in the '' Harvard Law Review'' in 1958 on morality and law, which demonstrated the divide between the posi ...
*
Legal interpretivism
*
Natural law
Natural law ( la, ius naturale, ''lex naturalis'') is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law (the express enacte ...
*
Lon Fuller
Lon Luvois Fuller (June 15, 1902 – April 8, 1978) was an American legal philosopher, who criticized legal positivism and defended a secular and procedural form of natural law theory. Fuller was a professor of Law at Harvard University for many ...
Notes
References
Sources
*
Nicola Lacey
Nicola Mary Lacey, (born 3 February 1958) is a British legal scholar who specialises in criminal law. Her research interests include criminal justice, criminal responsibility, and the political economy of punishment. Since 2013, she has been Pr ...
, ''A Life of H. L. A. Hart: The Nightmare and the Noble Dream'',
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
: 2004 .
* Frederick Schauer, "(Re)Taking Hart," 119 ''
Harv. L. Rev.'' 852 (2006) (reviewing Lacey, "A Life of H. L. A. Hart").
*
Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong (born 14 November 1944) is a British author and commentator of Irish Catholic descent known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and ...
, ''The Spiral Staircase'', Harper Collins, 2004
*
Carlin Romano
Carlin Romano is an American writer and educator. Romano writes for ''The Chronicle of Higher Education.''
Career
Romano was a writer for ''The Philadelphia Inquirer''. He teaches at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Commun ...
, "A Philosopher's Humanity", ''
Chronicle of Higher Education
''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to rea ...
'' vol. 51 (2005) (reviewing Lacey, "A Life of H. L. A. Hart"
link*
Matthew Kramer, ''H.L.A. Hart The Nature of Law'',
Polity
A polity is an identifiable Politics, political entity – a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of Institutionalisation, institutionalized social relation, social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize ...
: 2018 .
External links
Short Biographyby Tony Honoré
rchived by Wayback MachineObituary: Professor Herbert Hartin ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' by Zenon Bankowski
Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart 1970–1992British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...
''In Memoriam'' by Tony Honoré
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, H. L. A.
1907 births
1992 deaths
People educated at Bradford Grammar School
People educated at Cheltenham College
Alumni of New College, Oxford
20th-century British writers
20th-century British philosophers
British Jews
Jewish philosophers
English legal scholars
British legal scholars
British political philosophers
Philosophers of law
Fellows of New College, Oxford
Fellows of University College, Oxford
Principals of Brasenose College, Oxford
Ordinary language philosophy
Presidents of the Aristotelian Society
Professors of Jurisprudence (University of Oxford)
English legal writers
MI5 personnel
Bletchley Park people
Fellows of the British Academy
Burials at Wolvercote Cemetery