Despite persistent criticism from a variety of different perspectives including natural law, legal realism and socio-legal studies, legal positivism remains as an enduring theory of law. The essays contained in this volume represent the most balanced responses toward legal positivism and although largely sympathetic, the essays do not fail to criticize elements of the tradition wherever appropriate.

Contents: Separability, Sources and Rules: Authority, law and morality, Joseph Raz; Rules and social facts, Jules Coleman; Wilfrid Waluchow and the argument from authority, Tim Dare; Rules and the rule of law, Frederick Schauer. Rules and Authority: Second-order reasons, uncertainty and legal theory, Stephen R. Perry; Law and exclusionary reasons, Larry Alexander; Positivism and the foundations of legal authority, Rolf Sartorius; Positivism through thick and thin, Frederick Schauer. Prescriptive Positivism: A moralistic case for a-moralistic law, D. Neil McCormick; Constitutional positivism, Frederick Schauer; Natural law ambiguities, Robin West; Legislation, authority and voting, Jeremy Waldron; The point of legal positivism, Tom D. Campbell. Revisiting the Classical Positivists: Was Hobbes a legal positivist?, Mark C. Murphy; Kant's legal positivism, Jeremy Waldron, The expositor, the censor and the common law, Gerald J. Postema; The neo-Kantian dimensions of Kelsen's pure theory of law, Stanley L. Paulson; Misunderstanding positivism, Anthony J. Sebok; Name index.