The Concept of Law 

is a 1961 book by the legal philosopher HLA Hart and his most famous

work. The Concept of Law presents Hart's theory of legal positivism—the view that laws are
rules made by humans and that there is no inherent or necessary connection between law
and morality—within the framework of analytic philosophy. Hart sought to provide a theory of
descriptive sociology and analytical jurisprudence. The book addresses a number of
traditional jurisprudential topics such as the nature of law, whether laws are rules, and the
relation between law and morality. Hart answers these by placing law into a social context
while at the same time leaving the capability for rigorous analysis of legal terms, which in
effect "awakened English jurisprudence from its comfortable slumbers".
Hart's book has remained "one of the most influential text of analytical legal philosophy", as
well as "the most successful work of analytical jurisprudence ever to appear in the common
law world." According to Nicola Lacey, The Concept of Law "remains, 40 years after its
publication, the main point of reference for teaching analytical jurisprudence and, along
with Kelsen’s The Pure Theory of Law and General Theory of Law and State, the starting
point for jurisprudential research in the analytic tradition.

I. Introduction

Man’s natural ability to reason cannot be discounted in attempting to answer the

philosophical question of “what is law?” This is because man’s inherent nature of rationality is
one of the more rational arguments that a scholar can come up with in attempting to justify
the law’s existence. The law, possibly in the layman’s eyes, is a product of the human mind.
Naturally, such a codified prescription on human behavior cannot be produced without man’s
rationality. But beyond that, we may ask, what are the particular relations governing man’s
rationality and the existence of laws? This is what Jurgen Habermas sought to address, as he
explained the relation of rationality to law.

Jurgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher whose work focuses mainly on the
foundations of social theory and epistemology, democracy and the rule of law. He was born in
Dusseldorf, Germany in 1929, and was a witness to Germany’s loss in the war with the Allies
in 1945. He studied at the University of Gottingen and the University of Bonn. Moreover, he
earned a doctorate degree in philosophy from the University of Bonn in 1954.

Some of Habermas’ notable works, among others, are The Theory of Communicative Action,
and the Knowledge and Human Interests, where he “began to develop a distinctive method
for elaborating the relationship between a theoretical social science of modern societies, on
the one hand, and the normative and philosophical basis for critique on the other.[4]” These
specific works have been discussed in the book of Fr. Ranhilio Aquino entitled A Philosophy of
Law: An Introduction to Legal Philosophy (2006), in furthering the arguments on the relation
of rationality and law.

The development of the theory of rationality is Habermas’ primary contribution to philosophy.

This is precisely what the following discussions will focus on, in an attempt to elucidate on
Habermas’ postulates on rationality and law. Further, this paper endeavors to apply this
theory of Habermas in the context of the Philippine legal system.

Dworkin evidently perceives principles as important elements of something good waiting, in

an unqualified shape, to be realized by adjudication. The Dworkinian model of principles
captures but only principles that are compatible in the sense that they live together within
one coherent theory
of political morality.