Practice question · Multiple choice
A legal norm is not true or false, but valid or invalid. What follows from this distinction when an observer states what the law requires in a given country?
Hints
- What kind of linguistic act occurs when someone merely describes an existing legal requirement?
- Does describing a rule create a duty, or does it merely assert a fact about that legal system?
Show the answer
C. She states a proposition about a norm, which is itself true or false
Why
Confusing the statement of a norm with the norm itself treats external reporting as lawmaking. An observer does not enact or validate rules; she asserts descriptive facts about existing valid norms, making her statement truth-apt.
Practise The Anatomy of a Legal Norm
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More questions on The Anatomy of a Legal Norm
- Why can a norm be valid and almost wholly ineffective at the same time?
- Complete the anatomy of the norm.
- For Hart, a rule of recognition is a secondary rule.
- How many kinds of secondary rule does Hart distinguish?
- Arrange these norms in the order Kelsen's chain of validity ascends.
- Sort each sentence by whether it is a NORM, a NORMATIVE PROPOSITION, or neither.
- Which are true of the properties a norm can have?
- In what year did Kelsen first publish the Pure Theory of Law?
- A normative proposition is itself a norm.