The Concept of Law

What law is, asked and answered with a clarity that reset the field. Hart describes a legal system as the union of primary rules that govern conduct and secondary rules that govern the rules themselves, including the rule by which we recognize what counts as law at all. It sounds abstract and it is foundational: nearly everyone who thinks seriously about what makes law binding still starts from this book. The philosophical floor under the whole subject.

The Oxford philosopher who gave modern legal theory its foundation by asking the deceptively simple question: what is law? The Concept of Law answers that a legal system is a union of primary rules that govern conduct and secondary rules that govern the rules themselves. The book reset the field and remains the starting point for anyone who wants to think clearly about what makes law binding.