H.L.A. Hart: A Twentieth-Century Oxford Political Philosopher

This essay, a version of which will appear in volume 54 (2009) of the American Journal of Jurisprudence, was conceived as an invited contribution to a projected volume on Twentieth Century political philosophers. It offers first a sketch (by a student and colleague) of H.L.A. Hart's life; second an account of the political philosophy which he explicitly articulated in The Concept of Law (1961), and of its relation to the main currents of Oxford political philosophy in the 1950s; and thirdly an exposition and critical assessment of the normative political theory deployed, to widespread acclaim, in his Law, Liberty & Morality (1963).