A Methodological Study Of Hart’s Philosophy Of Law

Since the advent of Hart’s book The Concept of Law in 1961,discussions in philosophy of law have inevitably played out within the framework of the problems set by the book,either following the path he set out to defend his theory or opposing Hart and proposing new theoretical paths.After a period of debate on the substance,scholars have turned their attention to Hart’s theoretical approach,with Dworkin being the most successful opponent,whose argument for the semantic sting in Empire of Law almost killed Hart’s theory under the conceptual-analytic reading;and beyond Dworkin,Perry,Leiter,Tamanaha,Ehrenberg and others are all strong opponents,offering different perspectives posed serious challenges to the conceptual-analytic approach.Although this process was accompanied by defences of Hart’s theory by Coleman,Raz and others,each of these defensive strategies was flawed.In the twenty-first century,in his book Philosophy of Law,Marmer proposes an alternative reading of Hart’s theory,namely,a Hart theory under a reductionist approach.In doing so,he rescues Hart’s theory from the fatal dilemma facing semantic theory and brings a new reading to the whole positivist enterprise,as well as providing a direction for the integration of Dworkin’s interpretive legal theory into this tradition as an opponent.And Marmer’s reductionist reading of Hart’s theory still has potential to be explored.On the one hand,it needs to answer the many challenges to Hart’s theory under a conceptual-analytical reading and,in doing so,establish its own theoretical strengths;On the other hand,it could also point the way to other directions of inquiry,namely to take the reductionist reading to the extreme and join forces with naturalism by means of methodological affinities as a helper in its treatment of normative issues.It is the former aspect of the work that this paper deals with,but it will also address the latter.Starting with a description of the three features of conceptual analysis,a recognized method of Hart’s philosophy of law,this paper will address three challenges to it in turn:the semantic thorn challenge,the intuitive dependence challenge,and the value neutrality challenge.The challenge of the semantic sting will take the Hart-Dworkin controversy as the main clue as to why Raz’s intuitive refutation is inadequate and why it is the reductionist vision proposed by Mamer that perfectly avoids most of the problems posed by the semantic sting;For the problem of relying on intuition,an attempt will be made to start from within naturalism,its main challenger,and to stand in the light of physicalism to show that conceptual analysis,as a naturally evolved human cognitive tool,can provide unfidelity but legitimate knowledge;For the issue of value neutrality,two different lines of criticism,functionalism and interpretivism,are sorted out,and it is argued that the former will fail by rejecting progress between different functional understandings,while the latter is a problem that the conceptual-analytic approach cannot cope with.Ultimately the paper will draw a contrast between reductionist and interpretivist solutions,arguing that reductionism,as an alternative to the conceptual-analytic approach,can not only evade the problems posed by the thorn of semantics and share the refutation of conceptual analysis against intuitive dependence,but can also demonstrate a sharper degree of contrast on the issue of value neutrality,and that an account of reductionist naturalism is not only feasible at a time when naturalism is the consensual context but also tentatively compatible with other types of theory,and our treatment of legal normativity should exist as part of a naturalistic treatment of normative issues.