UC Berkeley

I argue that existing positions in general jurisprudence raise more questions than they answer about why the law is relevant to what we should do. I then offer an alternative type of theory to explain the simple intuition that we must ordinarily follow the law, unless there’s good enough reason not to. On the model I offer, part of the reason to follow legal rules sometimes arises from the fact that they constitute social practices that are integral to human life. Although internal to law, such reasons are nonmoral and can be defeated or outweighed by countervailing moral considerations.