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(2001) The invisible origins of legal positivism, Dordrecht, Springer.
The habits of the people
the origin of John Austin's laws properly so called
William E Conklin
pp. 137-170
Thomas Hobbes grounded civil authority in a "natural condition" where creatures could not express themselves through a written language. They could only express their feelings and thoughts through bodily behaviour and this, in turn, led to a nasty, short and brutish life. Once such creatures began to share conventions as to what particular sounds and marks signified, they could agree to abide by certain undertakings. A basic contract could provide the terms and conditions under which all civil officials would enact and interpret their posit of scripts. A command was valid if it could be traced to an institutional office located on a patriarchal structure which, in turn, could be traced to authors who had first acquired a language. Such authors contrasted with the beasts who had dominated the natural condition.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-0808-2_7
Full citation:
Conklin, W.E. (2001). The habits of the people: the origin of John Austin's laws properly so called, in The invisible origins of legal positivism, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 137-170.
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