I should have told you, I should have stopped you!

I wonder why it is that someone else's bad decision making seems to bother me so much. 

Nevermind. 

stop procrastinating already! I am going to revise religiously from now on. This postgraduate course is killing me. blergh.

Command theory

In Austin's theory, Austin talk about the relationship between law and coercion. He submitted for there to be a legal system, there must be a sovereign, and for there to be a sovereign , there must be habitual obedience by the bulk of society.

Sovereign+receive a habitual obedience by the bulk of society: a legal system.

Here clearly, there is a necessary connection made by Austin between legitimacy and coercion because in Austin's theory, he clearly states that people obey the law because of fear of sanction. In other words, coercion is necessary before there can be a legal system.

For individual's law, in Austin's theory, they consists of commands. One key aspect of commands is by definition every comman must have sanctions. If there is no sanction, then it is not a commans and therefore it is not a law.

Descriptive Sociology

An aspect of Hart's theory which is vitally used by Hart in explaining/justifying his conclusions is the use of linguistic or in other words, linguistic philosophy.

Basic methods:

• Theory is descriptive in his entire approach
• Because the theory is descriptive, language becomes a vital element and it is here that Hart emphasis that the use of the correct linguistic terminology is vital in understanding the law
• His overall justification and conclusions are also based on one recurring theme, ie that law and the related phenomena (morality and coercion) are in fact pat of sociology.

In Jurisprudence, there are two basic approaches when it comes to a discussion of law. The Natural Law theories adopt what is largely a prescriptive approach. Whereas positivsm is largely descriptive.

Descriptive is where we analyse a concept as it is, for example, it is a study of law as it is. On the other hand, prescriptive theories go further, They not only look as the law as it, but they look at the law as it ought to be. Therefore, when Hart says that his theory is descriptive, it means that whatever conclusions he makes in the concept of law is based entirely on facts that can be observed. He says that his concept of law is merely describing what we all can see in a legal system.

Hart's purpose is to show the basic structure that can be found in a municipal legal system. Hart's descriptive approach, however, does not arise out of nothing. It is based on actual observation of sociological factors. This means that law is part of sociology and whatever conclusions that are drawn in the concept of law would be based on sociological evidence and therefore, Hart's theory is not based on definition.