Patterson on Theoretical Disagreement, Legal Positivism, and Interpretation

Dennis Patterson, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has published Theoretical Disagreement, Legal Positivism, and Interpretation 31 Ratio Juris 260 (2018). Here is the abstract.

Ronald Dworkin famously argued that legal positivism is a defective account of law because it has no account of Theoretical Disagreement. In this article I argue that legal positivism—as advanced by H.L.A. Hart—does not need an account of Theoretical Disagreement. Legal positivism does, however, need a plausible account of interpretation in law. I provide such an account in this article.

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