Journal for constitutional theory and philosophy of law

The job of every conceptual theory of law—i

21 Some legal academicians overestimate the practical consequences of a conceptual theory of law

1 The defining project of general or conceptual jurisprudence—i

, the conceptual analysis of law—is to provide philosophically rigorous explications of various concepts that figure prominently in discourse about law

That is, conceptual jurisprudence is concerned with giving an explication of the nature of law and other important legal practices

55There is a familiar naturalistic account of law, associated with “classical” legal positivism, according to which the normativity of law is to be explained in terms of the prospects of an adverse reaction to a breach of a legal norm

Such views are thought to have been criticized beyond redemption by Hart’s critique of Austin’s command theory