Abstract

The main problems dealt with in the text are as follows: the presumed impoverishment of legal positivism; values versus authority; 'anti-legal positivism' trends in recent administrative law science; the tradition of legal positivism; three conceptual theses on legal positivism; the thesis of social sources; separation of law and ethics; the function of law; some theoretical 'commitments'; authoritative techniques; practical decision-making through rules; vices and virtues of practical decision-making through rules; concept and ideal of the rule of law; law enforcement; reasoning on law and reasoning according to law; to open or close moral argument?; the asymmetry of authority and the paradox of rules; the 'bad turn' done by 'legal principles'; some modest reflections on prescriptive meta- jurisprudence.