The Hart–Fuller debate is an exchange between the American law professor
Lon L. 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 ...
and his English counterpart
H. L. A. Hart
Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart (18 July 190719 December 1992), known simply as H. L. A. Hart, was an English legal philosopher. He was Professor of Jurisprudence (University of Oxford), Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University an ...
, published in the ''
Harvard Law Review'' in 1958 on morality and law, which demonstrated the divide between the
positivist and
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 ...
philosophy. Hart took the positivist view in arguing that morality and law were separate. Fuller's reply argued for morality as the source of law's binding power.
Nazi informer case
The debate discusses the verdict rendered by a decision of a post-war West German court on the following case :
Philosophy
Positivists believe in a separation between the law as it is and the law as it should be. Legal rights and moral rights are not related, beyond mere coincidence. Hart believes the method of deciding cases through logic or deduction is not necessarily wrong, just as it is not necessarily right to decide cases according to social or moral aims. Hart uses the problem of "the core and the penumbra" to illustrate the idea that laws must be related to the meaning of the words, not any natural or moral belief. A "core" case would be one that the statute is intended to cover. In the classic example, a statute that bans vehicles from a park is obviously intended to cover cars. A "penumbra" case would be one not considered by the creators of the law, such as a skateboard in the example above. A judge interpreting such a law from a positivist viewpoint would look to a definition of the words in the statute. The natural law view believes that the creation of law should be based on natural laws or common morals.
See also
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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 ...
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Legal positivism
Legal positivism (as understood in the Anglosphere) is a school of thought of analytical jurisprudence developed largely by legal philosophers during the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Jeremy Bentham and John Austin. While Bentham and Austin de ...
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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 ...
References
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External links
* Jan Komárek:
Ještě ke konferenci k padesátinám debaty mezi HLA Hartem a Lonem Fullerem'
* Aakash Singh Rathore, "Video lecture on the Hart-Fuller Debate":
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Philosophy of law
Legal disputes
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