It can be inferred that legal positivists, as described in the passage, agree with which one of the following stateme...

jingjingxiao11111@gmail.com on December 21, 2021

Hi I am not an instructor but I will try to help. I also got this question wrong by selecting C first.

C is incorrect because it is actually the view of Dworkin, with line references in the third paragraph. “Dworkin (35) stresses the fact that there is an internal logic to a . society's laws and the general principles they typically . embody. An interpretation that conforms to these . principles may be correct even if it is not supported by . a consensus. Since these general principles may (40) involve such moral concepts as justice and fairness, . judges may be called upon to consult their own moral . intuitions in arriving at an interpretation. But this is not . to say that judges are free to impose their own morality . at will, without regard to the internal logic of the laws.


D is correct because it is the view of the legal positivism, with line references in the second paragraph. The meaning of the law rests on social (15) convention in the same way as does the meaning of a . word. Dworkin's view is that legal positivists regard . disagreement among jurists as legitimate only if it . arises over what the underlying convention is, and it is . to be resolved by registering a consensus, not by (20) deciding what is morally right. In the same way, . disagreement about the meaning of a word is settled by . determining how people actually use it, and not by . deciding what it ought to mean


Thank you. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Ravi on February 12, 2022

The problem with C is when it says, "ultimate standard of interpretation is the logic of the law itself." The issue here is that legal positivists believe that the standard of interpretation is convention, as opposed to how most people interpret the law in actuality (this can be found in the lines 17-21 area). So from this, we know that Dworkin thought the standard should be the logic of the law, not the positivists. That's how we can get rid of C.

jingjingxiao11111@gmail.com on February 13, 2022

Thank you!