Complete the anatomy of the norm.
A sentence that prescribes cannot be true or false, only ______. A sentence describing the existence of a norm is a normative ______, and that one can be true or false. Hart calls the rule identifying what counts as law in a system the rule of ______. Kelsen closes the chain of validity with a presupposed ______ norm.
Word bank: valid · proposition · recognition · basic · efficacious · primary
Hints
- The first two blanks are the two halves of one distinction.
- The last two blanks are the two rival ways of closing the chain.
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A sentence that prescribes cannot be true or false, only valid. A sentence describing the existence of a norm is a normative proposition, and that one can be true or false. Hart calls the rule identifying what counts as law in a system the rule of recognition. Kelsen closes the chain of validity with a presupposed basic norm.
The last two blanks name the same problem and two different answers. Every chain of validity has to stop somewhere; Kelsen stops it at a norm that is presupposed by legal thought, and Hart at a rule that is practised by officials and can be observed. One is a postulate, the other a social fact, and the difference is the whole quarrel between them.
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?
- A legal norm is not true or false, but valid or invalid. What follows from this distinction when an observer…
- 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.