Positivitism

Positivitism Legal positivism is the thesis that the existence and content of law depends on social facts and not on its merits. The English jurist John Austin (1790-1859) formulated it thus: “The existence of law is one thing; its merit and demerit another. Whether it be or be not is one enquiry; whether it be or be not conformable to an assumed standard, is a different enquiry.” (1832, p. 157) The positivist thesis does not say that law's merits are unintelligible, unimportant, or peripheral to the philosophy of law. It says that they do not determine whether laws or legal systems exist. Whether a society has a legal system depends on the presence of certain structures of governance, not on the extent to which it satisfies ideals of justice, democracy, or the rule of law. What laws are positivism, law, whether, social, thesis, legal, depends, view, system, sufficient, say, reason, one, never, merits, laws, fact, existence, enquiry, austin, wise, while, unwise, unjust, unintelligible, unimportant, tolerated, together, thus, thought, thinking, thing, systems, subject, structures, standards