Table of Contents

Part 1 Simple positivism. Part 2 Sophisticated Positivism. Part 3 Anti-positivism: reasons for action; law and authority; the point of view of legal theory; the acceptance of law; principle and discretion; interpretation and semantics; law and the common good; anti-positivism's conclusions; the movements of legal thought; compatibilism; the concept of law.

Reviews

`For a brilliant presentation and appraisal of all moves in this debate, and of the underlying movements in thought, look no further than Roger Shiner's Norm and Nature, a quite splendid book ... scholarly acumen, practical insight, lucid style, and pointed wit.'
Neil MacCormick, Times Literary Supplement
`Norm and Nature makes a substantial and valuable contribution to contemporary theorizing about the nature of law. It exposes new dimensions of the debates between positivists and their opponents and explores these with some precision, often in an absorbing and provocative way ... there is a wealth of careful and subtle reasoning in this book which deserves attention from legal theorists simply on its own merits, and which will be of
special interest to positivists because it raises doubts about how comprehensive and illuminating a positivist account of law can be.'
Canadian Philosophical Reviews
'His fascinating book, Norm and Nature: The Movements of Legal Thought, argues that there is deep significance to a feeling that every undergraduate must have had in first considering the modern classics of legal theory: that there is something good to be said on each side ... There is much that is worth considering here and much of value in his deft reconstruction of the arguments of the various sides ... most challenging for present purposes is
his metajurisprudential thesis: Is it sound?'
Leslie Green, York University, Toronto, American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 1, March 1994
`fascinating book'
American Political Science Review