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hart and fuller debate?

hi there,

i was wondering if any1 can just explain to me wot the hart and fuller debate was (in the most simplest form), as i cannot find my notes on it.

thanks

Reply 1

lil' pink lady

shanaz2k6

hi there,

i was wondering if any1 can just explain to me wot the hart and fuller debate was (in the most simplest form), as i cannot find my notes on it.

thanks

hart fuller? what topic is it for?

Reply 2

shaz2k8

lil' pink lady

hart fuller? what topic is it for?

law and morals- unit 6

Reply 3

Pinkziggy

I would like it explained 2. I can't find notes on it either. Exam tomorrow morning as well. Anyone help??

Reply 4

Lala18

it is hart and devlin isnt it ?

Reply 5

Jamie_Fletcher

Hart is a crazy Liberal and Devlin is a bit of a Tory lol...

Devlin thinks Law should support the major moral issues of society.

Hart didn't, Hart belived in the harm principle and that as long as something didn't harm someone else it didn't matter if other people saw the act as immoral.

This all came about because of the 1960s and many liberalisations in sexual policy.

Reply 6

Pinkziggy

Yes it is Hart and Devlin but there is a debate between Fuller and Hart too. Fuller believes the same as Devlin i think.

Reply 7

Ethereal

I'd hardly call Hart liberal.

Hart was a positivist, ergo he believed a law was a law because it was correctly formulated and it required no conceptual connection with morality.

Devlin was a natural law theorist who beleived a law was a law because it derived from a higher theme of morals, and any law that broke these even if it was formulated correctly was not a law. He argued for a necessary conceptual connection between law and morality.

Reply 8

mooter

Hart/Devlin debate is about whether it is the task of criminal law to reflect morality.

The Hart/Fuller debate is essentially about legal positivism and natural law with Hart arguing that we must ‘distinguish firmly and with the maximum clarity, law as it is from law as it ought to be’.

Fuller argued that there is a necessary moral foundation to law. Example is the Nazi law: Hart argues that Nazi law as a matter of practice had force, therefore to suggest that it wasn't law is naive. Fuller calls Nazi law "legislative monstrosity", hence no obligation to obbey. To get the contemporary views on the debate you can look at John Finnis and Dworkin

You can look at the Harvard Law review for 1958 to get the full Hart/Fuller debate