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97 Harv. L. Rev 1214 (1983-1984)
Jurisprudence at the Crossroads: Steering a Course Between Positivism and Natural Law

handle is hein.journals/hlr97 and id is 1232 raw text is: BOOK REVIEWS JURISPRUDENCE AT THE CROSSROADS: STEERING A COURSE BETWEEN POSITIVISM AND NATURAL LAW LAw, NoRMs AND AUTHORITY. By George C. Christie.1 London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. 1982. Pp. i8. $29.50. Reviewed by David A.J. Richards2 Natural law theorists and legal positivists have long debated the separability of law and morals: whereas legal positivists maintain that law is separable from morals, natural law theorists claim that any such distinction is untenable. In contemporary jurisprudence, the leading expositor of positivism is Joseph Raz, who follows H.L.A. Hart in arguing that laws are to be understood as norms that can be distinguished from substantive ethical concepts.3 The opposite view, reflected in Ronald Dworkin's interpretive theory of law as a coherent system of principles, assumes that the construction of such a system cannot be undertaken in isolation from the elaboration and analysis of substantive ethical concepts.4 In Law, Norms and Authority, George Christie attempts to steer between these two predominant schools of Anglo-American legal phi- losophy. He rejects the visions of law advanced by legal positivists and natural law theorists alike and proposes to replace them with an alternative account - one that represents a return to a form of legal realism. Although Christie's neorealist theory of law affirms a form of the positivist separation of law and ethics, the theory emphasizes neither law as a system 6f norms nor law as principle, but focuses instead on the methods by which judges apply law. Christie's work is ambitious: its stated aim is to develop a theory that views law as a political and social phenomenon but that avoids the distortions and overidealizations inherent in the picture of law as a system of either norms (Raz) or principles (Dworkin) and that also rejects the standard positivist analysis of authority as conceptually dependent on law. The strength of Christie's account of law is its realism. This realism allows for a kind of discretion in legal decisionmaking that differs from what Raz proposes or what Dworkin would allow. Yet the very strength of Christie's model - its realistic description of the element of discretion in law - is undermined by his use of the model 1 Professor of Law, Duke University. 2 Professor of Law,,New York University. -3 See J. RAz, THE AUTHORITY OF LAW (1979); J. RAE, THE CONCEPT OF A LEGAL SYSTEM (1970); J. RAE, PRACTICAL REASON AND NoRMs (1975). 4 See R. DwolKIN, TAKING RIGHTS SERIOUSLY (I977). 1214

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