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37 Revus: J. Const. Theory & Phil. Law 9 (2019)

handle is hein.journals/revus37 and id is 1 raw text is: 9 Stefano Bertea* A problem for the unambitious view of legal normativity In this contribution, I discuss the so-called unambitious view of legal normativity, as it is specifically theorised by Brian Bix. While I agree with Bix that legal normativity should not be assumed to be reducible by default to moral normativity, I will argue that the normativity of law cannot be qualified as a sui generis form of normativity, for, pace Bix, the quality of legal normativity is best understood as genuine. That is, the normative claims the law makes on its subjects do address the general practical question: What ought we to do? Keywords: legal positivism, normativity, law, morality, Hart (HLA), Kelsen (Hans) 1 INTRODUCTION Today, legal theorists of different orientations and with diverse backgrounds agree that the task of elucidating the normativity of law in general and the natu- re of such normativity in particular are key components of any ambitious rese- arch programme in jurisprudence.' Brian Bix figures among them, since in his work he repeatedly engages with (multiple components of) the normativity of law, by theorising a position that is both original and intriguing.2 Here, I intend to specifically discuss a study that appeared in a previous issue of this journal, where Bix's own account of legal normativity is made to emerge progressively through the critical treatment of the conceptions put forward by Hans Kelsen and Herbert Hart.3 In that study, Bix (2018: 40) commits himself to (what he qualifies as) an unambitious view of legal normativity, which is programma- tically purported to secure an explanation of the normative components of the law that is coherent with the stance of legal positivism. Insofar as Bix's unam- bitious view of legal normativity can be shown to be tenable, then we would be able to count on a framework that contributes, on the one hand, to advance our understanding of a fundamental component of the law-its normativity-and, stefano.bertea@leicester.ac.uk I Associate Professor of Law, School of Law, University of Leicester (UK) and DFG Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany). 1 The task of explaining legal normativity is central to the following contemporary works, among many others: Hart 1982, Postema 1982, Raz 1994, Coleman 2001, Marmor 2001, Per- ry 2001, Alexy 2002, Marmor & Sarch 2015, and Green 2018. For a dissenting position see Enoch 2011. 2 In particular, I should refer the reader to the claims defended in Bix 1996, Bix 2006, Bix 2012, Bix 2015, and Bix 2018. 3 The study I refer to is Bix 2018. journal for constitutional theory and philosophy of law P Vue (2019)37

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