Speaker 1Hey everyone, this is Scott Shapiro and it is episode six
Speaker 2of the Jurisprudence Course podcast. It is day N of the coronavirus quarantine, where N is greater than one and I believe less than a hundred. Other than that, I have no idea how long we've all been quarantined for. But I read somewhere on the internet that it's April. So let's look, let, let, let me, before, before I begin, just to say that what's kind of scary about this quarantining is just the fact that I'm kind of getting used to it. It's really important. I think when you're all huddled together to have like a schedule, you know, so that everyone knows what they're supposed to do at a certain time. So in our family, we have like a schedule about when everyone's allowed to freak out, you know? So like somebody in the morning to freak out and then somebody gets lunch to freak out. And you know, so it's like all of a sudden, like somebody who's acting completely irrationally and you're like, what the hell's going on? And you realize, oh, right. It's three. It's his turn. And by the way, shout out to all my daughter's friends who are listening. Okay, let's start. Today, I'm very excited about this. We're going to be talking about what's going on in our family. We're going to be talking about, you know, a lot of things. We're going to be talking about our family. We're going to be talking about our children. So we're going to have three parts. This is going to be a lot, a lot of material. Somebody on Twitter said that listening to podcasts like me is like a friend calling you up and you're ranting jurisprudence to you over the phone, ignoring all your questions, hanging up and then doing it again. That's exactly what I'm aiming for. I'm going to rant this shit to you about jurisprudence today and Hart's theory of law. Let's do three parts. Introduction to the rule of recognition. Part two, detailed discussion of the rule of recognition. And part three, we're going to get to the chicken egg, Hart's solution to the chicken egg puzzle and Hume's puzzle. Okay. So we're trying to do all of that. If it goes over, I may cut it off and then pick it up at episode seven, but let's start. Okay. So we talked about all the problems that Austin's theory of law faced. It ignores the existence of power conferring rules. It can't explain the true nature of duty imposing rules. It can't explain laws that are not created by command. It can't explain the continuity of legal authority or the persistence of law or the limitability of sovereignty. It can't explain so many things. Okay. Now there's one more thing that it can't explain, which is, and this will help me connect today's episode with the end of episode five, where we talked about the internal point of view. And one of the things that Austin's theory of law can't explain is the intelligibility of law. That is the intelligibility of the fact that when we speak about the law, we're speaking about this institution which imposes rights and which confers rights and imposes duties. And the reason why I can't render the normative nature of the law intelligible is because it's based on the non-normative, the purely descriptive concept of power. Power, the ability to force somebody or to influence somebody to do something in a certain way, to incentivize them to act in a certain way, okay, does not enable you, does not give you enough conceptual apparatus to explain the idea that the law confers rights and imposes duties. So if you say, oh, you're supposed to listen to the law because the sovereign said so, and you say, well, so why should I listen to what the sovereign said so? You want to be able to say because the sovereign has the right to tell you what to do. But under Austin's theory, all you can say is, well, people habitually obey the sovereign. But that just seems like, uh, a category mistake. Well, just because the sovereign can force you to do something doesn't mean that you ought to do it. So what we need is this notion that the sovereign is doing or what the law does in general is give us reasons to act, okay? And this is how one can introduce the idea of the internal point of view, which we've talked about at the end of the show. At the end of episode five. So in what Hart, uh, argues in the concept of law is that when you understand the law as conferring powers and imposing duties, one is taking the internal point of view towards the law. One is taking the law as a reason, as a guide to conduct, and as a way for evaluating other people's conduct. It's to inhabit a conception we're, it's to inhabit, if you will, like a normative universe in which the law doesn't merely have the power to get us to do certain things, but gives us reasons to do certain things by exercising rights, by conferring rights upon us and by imposing duties. Okay. This is the internal point of view, the critical reflective attitude that we talked about. At the end of the last episode. Okay. Now, Hart expressed this idea by saying that the gunman obliges you to hand over your money, but he doesn't obligate you to hand over the money. That's because we don't take the internal point of view towards the gunman, but we do towards the law. And we'll actually talk about what that means. Um, a lot in a bit. So, but the basic idea is that we need this critical reflective attitude to understand the normativity, the normative nature of law. Okay. Now think about it at the level of sovereignty. Okay. We said that the sovereign is not just somebody who is habitually obeyed, but somebody who has the right to tell us what to do. And so what we're doing is we're, when we say that they have the right to tell us what to do, we're inhabiting, we're speaking from the perspective of a rule. So what Hart wants to say is what makes a sovereign a sovereign is not the habit of obedience, but a rule in particular social rule. So let's talk about what a social rule is for Hart. And we said, it's not just a habit, a behavioral regularity. Um, a social rule is something that's accepted from the internal point of view. And what Hart is going to say is that what is at the foundation of all law is a set of social rules, a set of behavioral regularities accepted from the internal point of view, according to which certain things that happen will be taken as guides to conduct and as reasons for action. Now, what are those social rules? And those social rules are the rules of recognition, rules of change, and rules of adjudication that some of you might've heard of, but I'm going to go through them. And I'm going to go through them carefully right now. Okay. When Hart talks about, um, when in, in chapter five, the concept of law, where he's trying to introduce his, his, his theory of law, he introduces this kind of fable and he begins by saying, imagine that there's this pre-legal society. It's a small society, um, that inhabits a very kind of stable ecological niche. And according to which the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, all rules are customary. That is, there's rule in that society just in case people act in a certain way and accept it from the internal point of view. So they share food in a certain way and they accept that procedure for sharing from the internal point of view. They choose mates in a certain way and accept that from the internal point of view. There's a lot of different rules that they have, but these are customary rules, okay? They're just a set of rules, a set of social practices that they have. What Hart says, imagine what it would be like to live in that society. What would happen was there would be a number of problems that would arise of which this society would have no match. There would be no mechanism for resolving. So first thing he said is there's going to be this problem of uncertainty. People, when they face a question about how do they act, and one part of the group says, well, the way we ought to act is this way, and then another part of the group says, no, the way we ought to act is that way, there will be no way to resolve that question of how to act. There would be no way to fix it. There would be no way to figure out, other than by counting heads, what rule is the rule of the group. And so what happens is that there's going to arise a whole series of questions of which the group will be unable to resolve how they all should act. So that's the first thing is the problem of stasis. That is, let's say something changes. Let's say there's a disease that starts sweeping through the group, and they have to figure out how to deal with it. So they want to change the rules. But there's kind of no real way to change the rules quickly. You have to wait until people's behavior changes and accept it from the internal point of view before you can say that the rule has changed. What you need is a degree of nimbleness to adapt, to evolve, to changing circumstances and new problems. But the group, because it guides its conduct just by customary rules, won't have this way of being able to change quickly. The way I will put it is that in a pre-legal system which has customary rules, what you want is a rule that is able to change the rules quickly. And so in a pre-legal system, you want a rule to change behavior. But in a customary system, the only way you can change the rules is by changing behavior, right? And that's backwards. So you want to be able to change behavior by changing rules, but there is no mechanism for doing that in a customary system. Because what the rules are is how people act and what they accept from the internal point of view. So the only way you can actually change the rules is by changing behavior, but that's backwards. You want to be able to change behavior by changing the rule. And the third is the problem of inefficiency. So let's say we know that the rule is X, and I say, you broke the rule, and you say, no, I didn't break the rule. Then we start fighting over whether we broke the rule or not. There's no mechanism to figure out who's right and who's wrong. There's no institution to go to and say, wait a second, the rule is X, but he broke the rule. And so you want to be able to change behavior by changing behavior. And you say, oh, actually, no, no, no, no, I didn't break the rule. Somebody needs to be able to figure out whether the rule was broken or not. And we're just going to end up fighting amongst one another. And that's going to be an inefficient way to resolve our problems. And so in a pre-legal system that guides its conduct purely on the basis of customary rules, the three problems at heart identifies the problem of uncertainty, you know, what are the rules, problem of stasis, how to change the rules, and problem of inefficiency. How do we figure out whether the rules have been conformed to or not? Now, in general, this is not going to be a problem if you have a small group in an environment that doesn't change a lot. But as the group gets bigger, there's going to be problems dealing with all these questions of uncertainty, stasis, and inefficiency. And after a while, these problems are going to get so hard and so difficult and post so many costs on the group that they're going to try to figure out a way of solving them. And according to Hart, the law is a solution to these three problems, the problem of uncertainty, stasis, and inefficiency. Okay, let's talk about uncertainty. How does the group solve the problem of uncertainty? Well, they could create rules about those rules. They could tell you, they could say, well, you know what the rules are in the system? The rules in the system are those rules that are, I don't know, written on the stone in the center of the square. Or it's what the shaman says in the ceremony. Or it's what is written in these books. So it could be any type of rule about what rules are binding, but there needs to be some kind of mechanism for figuring out what the rules are in that system. And this is what Hart calls the rule of recognition. That is, it's a rule that tells you what rules are binding in that group. I'm going to talk a lot about the rule of recognition in part two. Okay, the second thing is how do we, solve the problem of stasis? Well, what we do is we have what he calls a rule of change. That is, it's a power conferring rule, a rule that tells the group who has the ability to change the rules. So now you have this really nimble way, really quick way of being able to solve problems by designating a person or persons who have the power to change the rules quickly. And that's called the rule of change. And then the final problem, the problem of inefficiency, Hart says, well, maybe we should have a rule which designates a certain person or persons or institution to be able to figure out whether a rule has been conformed to or not. Okay, he calls this the rule of adjudication. And these would be social rules. That is, these would be rules of adjudication. And he calls this the rule of adjudication. That is, these would be rules which are practiced, and they would be about other rules. So they would be, in Hart's terminology, secondary rules. The rule of recognition would be a rule about which rules are binding. The rule of change would be a rule which tells you who has the power to change the rules. And then the rule of adjudication would be a rule that tells you who has the power to decide what rules are binding. And then the rule of adjudication would be a rule that tells you who has the power to decide what the rules are, whether the rules have been obeyed or not. Okay, we will pick this up in part two. Okay, that was Hart. How can I get you alone? Get it, Hart. And we're talking about HLA Hart's theory of law. Get it. Get the joke. Okay, now I'm going to go through, I'm going to tell you everything you ever needed to know about the rule of recognition in this part. Okay, so strap in. It's going to be a wild ride. Okay, so let's just review. For Hart, the rule of recognition is this rule which solves the problem of uncertainty. So it's a rule which tells you which rules are the rules of a particular group. Okay, it's one of the three main social rules that form the foundation of every legal system. So there's the rule of recognition, the rule of change, and the rule of adjudication. We're going to spend a lot of time talking about the rule of recognition, and then we talk a bit about the other two. But really, the rule of recognition is really super important, and I really want to drill down on it. Okay, now what is the rule of possession of which by a rule makes it a rule of that legal system and authoritative within the group. Okay. So let's say in the United States, the rule of recognition says that if Congress, uh, enacts legislation and signed by the president, or it's not signed by the president, but it is overridden by two thirds of the house and the Senate, then it's law. So the property is the property of either having been enacted by Congress and signed by the president or yada, yada, yada. So that's what the rule of recognition is. So if you'd have a rule, you want to know, does that rule bear that property identified by the rule of recognition? And if it does, it is authoritative within the group and is a law of that system. Okay. So the first, the first thing I want to say about the rule of recognition is that it's a secondary rule, meaning it's a rule about other rules. Okay. That's just the first thing is it's a secondary rule. It's a rule about other rules, which rules are binding in the group. Number two, it's a social rule, meaning it's not a personal rule. It's a rule which is practiced by a group and it's accepted by that group from the internal point of view, which is that they take the rule of recognition as a guide to conduct and a reason for evaluating other people's conduct in accordance with it. Okay. So it's not just that judges in the United States take the constitution as supreme law of the land, but they accept the constitution from the internal point of view. They don't just have a habit of deferring to it, but they have a critical reflective attitude towards the constitution as being the supreme law. Now, by saying it's a social, the social rule for heart is to say it's a social practice, behavior, regularity accepted from the internal point of view. It means also that it's a constitutional rule. So it's a rule that's accepted by virtue of social facts alone, right? Because whether some group has a practice is just a matter of social fact, right? You just have to look at the group. Well, are they doing something and do they, are they doing it with a certain attitude? Number two, it's a social rule in the sense that those who practice it see it as a reason, not just for them to act in a certain way, but for other people. to act in a certain way. Okay. So it kind of constitutes a social, a social standard for the group. Now, this is, I want, I want to just dwell on this for one second because I feel like a lot of people kind of get confused about this and make a mistake when they talk about the rule of recognition. For heart, the rule of recognition is practiced only by officials. Okay. Not by non-officials. So I, as a non-official, cannot follow the rule of recognition because the rule of recognition doesn't, is not addressed to me. The rule of recognition is addressed to legal officials. So if you're a judge, the rule of recognition can say, you know, it could say, um, judge, for cases which arise in front of you, apply rules that have these characteristics. But I can't follow that rule as a, as a non-judge, as a non-official, because I don't ever apply rules to cases which arise before me because cases don't arise before me because I'm not an official. Okay. So it's really important that for heart, the rule of recognition, is a social rule practiced by officials, okay? Citizens do not accept the rule of recognition. I'll talk more about that in a bit, but really, super important. If you don't accept it, end this podcast right now, okay? No, seriously. If this were a class, students would push back at this point, and then we would have a discussion, but obviously can't do that on a podcast. So, I'm going to try to anticipate some of the objections that come from this doctrine that only officials practice the rule of recognition, okay? But hold on, let me get to the third feature of the rule of recognition, which is it's not just a secondary rule about rules. It's not just a social rule that is a social practice among officials, but it's also an ultimate rule. Now, what do I mean an ultimate rule? I mean that its existence does not depend on any other rule, okay? The rule of recognition exists solely by virtue of the fact that it is practiced and accepted from the internal point of view by officials. There's no rule that makes the rule of recognition a rule. It's, if you will, bedrock. It's legal bedrock. There's no further down you can go than the rule of recognition. What makes a law a law of the system? The rule of recognition. What makes the rule of recognition? Practice by officials. There's no other rule which makes it that way. It's also a supreme rule, which is to say that if anything conflicts with the rule of recognition, it's the rule of recognition. It's the rule of recognition. It's the rule of it loses. Why? Because the rule of recognition is the rule that says what's binding in the group. And so there can be no other rule that beats it. Because if it beat it, then the rule of recognition wouldn't say follow it. Because then the rule of recognition would be internally inconsistent. Okay. Now, one way, that people often describe the rule of recognition is that it sets out the criteria of legal validity. Meaning that if you want to know what rule is legally valid in a particular legal system, you look to the rule of recognition because it sets out the criteria of legal validity. Did Congress pass it? Did an administrative agency pass it and act it? Did a court order it? These are criteria for determining whether rules are legally valid. And that's what the rule of recognition sets out. Now, the rule of recognition will also tell you which the order of precedent among those rules. So it'll not just tell you that in the United States, for example, or let's take New York State. So in New York State, New York law is legally valid. And federal law is also legally valid. But the rule of recognition will tell you that not only state law and federal law are valid, but federal law trumps state law. Okay. So there can be, as part of the supreme rule of recognition, the rule of recognition can set out which criteria of validity are supreme within that. Finally, the rule of recognition is not just a secondary rule, a social rule, an ultimate rule, and a supreme rule, but it is a duty-imposing rule. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, what? It's a duty-imposing rule. And my response is, yeah, it's a duty-imposing rule. It imposes a duty on officials to apply, certain rules that bear certain characteristics, the criteria of legal validity, to cases which arise before them. Now, I think a lot of people get confused about this. The rule of recognition is a duty-imposing rule. The rule of change and the rule of adjudication, they are power-conferring rules. Okay. Now, take the Constitution. The Constitution, people tend to think of the Constitution, when they read hard, they tend to think the Constitution is the rule of recognition. It isn't. The Constitution basically is a collection of rules of change and rules of adjudication. So Congress has the power to make certain rules, and federal courts have the power to adjudicate certain disputes. But neither those rules of change or rule of adjudication are actually part of the rule of recognition because the rule of recognition is a duty-imposing rule now what then is the rule of recognition in the united states well it would be something like judges and other legal officials are under a duty to apply those rules which according to the constitution the various institutions have the power to create and adjudicate the closest there is i think to the rule of recognition in the united states constitution is the provision which says that judges have to take an oath to um to to decide cases according to the constitution that's the closest that there is to the rule of recognition in the constitution but but really the rule of recognition in the hardian sense would be that judges and other officials are under duties to apply constitutional rules that is rules which were validly created according to the constitution now you might now you may say wait a second i thought let's say if you've taken a course before in jurisprudence have read read about it the rule of recognition was supposed to be like the definition of what the law is in a particular system now in some sense it is right the rule of recognition tells you tells tells you what the law is in a particular system but that's because the law in a particular system are those rules that officials are under a duty to apply in cases which arise before them so the rule of recognition can if you will be the definition of what the law is in a particular system is precisely because the law in a particular system is constituted by those rules that officials are under duty to apply okay i hope i hope that's somewhat clear i think it'll be it'll get clearer when we talk in part three about how this idea of the rule of recognition is able to solve a lot of the problems that we we saw that um austin uh ran into um uh in the previous episodes so let's just take a break and then i'm going to talk about how austin's uh how how the rule of recognition enables uh heart to explain so many things about law uh and solve the problems that uh he pointed out austin's theory ran into okay see you all we're
Speaker 1going to is make a love to you say you will you want me to all we're going to is make a love to you okay this is part
Speaker 2three of episode six jurisprudence of course podcast and i like that song particularly because i think um uh you know jurisprudence very romantic very romantic subject people don't really appreciate um how uh how lovely uh the rule of recognition is um so let's just take a break and we'll be right back let's let's let's uh let's talk about all the amazing things that the rule of recognition can do okay let's start with um heart's critique of austin uh that austin cannot explain the continuity of legal authority recall when rex rex rex um his failed son um rex jr as the next sovereign and um when rex dies rex jr becomes rex too and austin can't explain that because he thinks that all of sovereignty is derived from habits and you can't have a habit um straight off the bat you have to have a habit of obeying somebody over time and so therefore that you can't explain how rex two is rex two when rex one dies but um heart has an incredibly easy way of explaining why rex two is rex two once rex one dies is because the rule of recognition says whatever rex two says becomes law when rex one dies i mean it's that simple that is as long as there's this continuous practice of the rule of recognition among officials in the background which says you know whoever rex one designates as being his successor is the sovereign then as soon as rex one dies rex two becomes rex two just because that's what the world recognition says i mean to see how easy it is i just love that take persistence the idea is that like how can austin explain how rule maybe made 100 years um uh in the past how can that still be law now when the people who have threatened those um uh those expressions um are no longer alive and the answer is according to heart the rule of recognition the rule of recognition says that if a rule bears a certain property um let's say it was enacted by by parliament uh duly duly um constituted parliament uh then that rule is still the law of the land so the people who created that rule could be dead as long as the world recognition still recognizes what they did as being binding as binding so we get the persistence of law what about the supremacy of law within a group well that's just pretty damn easy that's because the rule of recognition says that certain first of all the rule of recognition is itself a supreme rule it beats every other rule and it designates who has supreme authority within that group we don't need this idea of habitual obedience to the sovereign and nobody habitually obeys and that and that sovereign doesn't habitually obey anyone else in order to establish the sovereign we just simply say oh the rule of recognition says that person what that person says beats what everyone else says easy peasy we can easily explain what makes a law the law of a certain group just simply say well is it a is it validated by that rule of recognition by that group's rule of recognition excuse me that's my mother on the on the other on the line um hi mom hi wait wait a second mom mom mom you're on the podcast can you say hello to everyone i'm recording the podcast right now could you just say uh hi hi everyone mom don't be shy hi everyone okay say okay uh okay okay mom i'm gonna can i call you back after i finish this okay okay bye bye love you too mom bye okay so um the rule of recognition defines uh the membership in a group uh um uh i'm sorry i'm a little i'm a little um uh discombobulated because my mom just called but i'm sorry i'm a little uh discombobulated because my mom just called but i'm sorry i'm a little uh discombobulated because my mom just called but um so the rule of recognition um so the rule of recognition um so the rule of recognition determines membership conditions determines membership conditions determines membership conditions for a rule in a legal system and because for a rule in a legal system and because for a rule in a legal system and because it does that it also it does that it also it does that it also constitutes and explains the independence constitutes and explains the independence constitutes and explains the independence of legal systems so for example of legal systems so for example of legal systems so for example new jersey has a different legal system new jersey has a different legal system new jersey has a different legal system than new york why it's because a rule than new york why it's because a rule than new york why it's because a rule that's made that's made that's made by the new jersey legislature is by the new jersey legislature is by the new jersey legislature is not part of the new york law because not part of the new york law because not part of the new york law because the rule of recognition of new jersey the rule of recognition of new jersey the rule of recognition of new jersey recognizes new jersey legislative law recognizes new jersey legislative law recognizes new jersey legislative law but not new york legislative law but not new york legislative law but not new york legislative law and vice versa that is and vice versa that is and vice versa that is the rule of recognition of new york the rule of recognition of new york the rule of recognition of new york recognizes new york legislative law but recognizes new york legislative law but recognizes new york legislative law but not new jersey not new jersey not new jersey legislative law so we can explain how legislative law so we can explain how legislative law so we can explain how how a rule can be how a rule can be how a rule can be a member of one system and not another a member of one system and not another a member of one system and not another even if it is if you will even if it is if you will even if it is if you will word for word word for word word for word the same So you can have two rules which are identical, but one can be a member of one legal system and one can be a member of another legal system, just in case the first rule is validated by the rule of recognition of one system and the other rule is validated by the rule of recognition of another system. Hart can easily explain how rules can apply to their makers. Remember, Hart complained that Austin couldn't explain how rules apply to their makers because you can't command yourself. The problem was that Austin thought all rules were commands. But for Hart, rules are just standards, and legal rules are standards which are validated. So there's no reason why somebody can't make a standard which applies to them because it's validated by their system's rule of recognition. Remember, Austin thought that the sovereign was necessarily above the law, and we complained, wait a second, but in constitutional systems, the sovereign is limited. Well, that's because for Hart, the. The rule of recognition will only recognize certain rules that have certain characteristics, and the rule of change will only confer power on groups within certain limits. So we don't have this implication in Hart's theory that we have in Austin's theory that the sovereign is necessarily above the law. Because in Hart's theory, the sovereign is created by law. It's not that the sovereign is the sole source of law. The sovereign itself is a legal creation, and the law can confer, and typically does, limited power on the sovereign. And the rule of recognition only recognizes rules which are created within those limits. I keep on talking about this idea of validity, and I said that a rule is legally valid or is a law of the system just in case it is validated by the rule of recognition, that it bears the properties specified and set out in the rule of recognition. So what we have is, for Hart, we have chains of validity. So you can say, well, why is the. Let's say the stay-at-home order of the mayor of New York and the city council, why is that legally valid? Oh, because it was created by the mayor and the city council. And you say, well, why is that valid? Well, look at the city charter, and you say, well, why is the city charter valid? You say, well, look at the charter which created New York City. And then you. And then you ask, well, why is that valid? And you say, well, look at the New York Constitution. And so you can keep on going up and up and up and up, but you're going to hit. You're going to hit the top at some point. And that's going to be the rule of recognition, the rule of change, and the rule of adjudication. They validate all the other rules, but they themselves are not valid. So this is really important. The rule of recognition, the rule of change. And the rule of adjudication are not valid. They're not invalid, but they validate. They themselves are not validated by anything else. Remember, they're ultimate rules. They exist simply by virtue of being practiced. They do not exist by virtue of validation by any other more ultimate rule. Okay? Okay, so a legal rule is a rule of a legal system just in case it is validated by the rule of recognition. When does a legal system exist? Well, for Hart, there are two conditions for the existence of a legal system. First, there has to be a rule of recognition, rule of change, and rule of adjudication. So it has to be the case that. First, the legal officials accept duties to apply certain rules and exercise powers to change and to adjudicate certain rules. And they accept that from the internal point of view. But then the non-officials, that is the citizens, and the subjects, they don't have to accept the rules of change, rules of adjudication, rule of recognition. Because it's not addressed to them. They have to at least follow the law most of the time. Now, crucially, they have to obey the law, but they don't have to do it from the internal point of view. That is, they have to obey the law for any reason whatsoever. They can do it not because they take the internal point of view towards the law. They can obey because they're afraid of being punished. They can do it because, I don't know, they're in the habit of following, of obeying the law. Who cares? What's necessary in the second prong of the test for the existence of a legal system is simply the fact that the bulk of the population obeys the law for any reason. But according to the first prong. The legal officials have to accept the secondary rules of the system from the internal point of view. Okay? So we have this bifurcation, okay? The legal officials have to accept the law from the internal. The secondary rules from the internal point of view. And the subjects, they have to obey the law for any reason whatsoever, even if not from the internal point of view. So for Hart's theory, it's not necessary for. For the subjects and citizens to obey the law because they think the law gives them reasons for action. They can obey the law because they're afraid of being punished. Now, a system in which the subjects and citizens did not take the internal point of view towards the law would be probably a very unstable system. But provided that they actually obey the law, the legal system would still exist as long as the legal officials took the internal point of view towards the. Towards the rule of recognition, the rule of change, and the rule of adjudication. Now, I want to end here because I think we're. I don't want to make the podcast too long. And so there. Therefore, I'll talk about the chicken-egg-heart solution to the chicken-egg paradox and Hume's puzzle at the beginning of the next episode. But let me just explain Hart's dictum that the essence of law is the union of primary and secondary rules. So this is what Hart says. The essence of law is the union of primary and secondary rules. And what does he mean by that? What he means is two things. First of all, the law consists of the secondary rules practiced by officials from the internal point of view, namely the rule of recognition, the rule of change, and the rule of adjudication. And then the primary rules, which are validated by the rule of recognition. Okay? All the regular stuff. You know, the rules of contract and the rules of tort and the rules of criminal law. So it's the union of primary and secondary rules, but it's also a systematic relationship. So it's not just that the law is just a collection of primary and secondary rules, but the law forms a system. It forms a system because the primary rules are the rules of that legal system because they are validated by the secondary rule. And the primary rules are the rules of recognition and are created through the exercise of the rule of change and the rule of adjudication. So, again, what we have here is not just a grab bag of secondary rules and primary rules, but the legal system is a system because the rules that exist are connected to one another in a certain way through chains of validity. Thank you. Okay. So I hope, I hope, um, I hope that is reasonably clear. So if you, as long as you accept the idea that the law is grounded in secondary rules, which pick out certain rules, other rules as being binding for the group, you're able to explain enormous amount about the law. You can explain the continuity of legal authority. You can explain the persistence of law. You can explain the supremacy of law. You can explain membership relations. You can, you can explain, um, why legal systems, why. So basically the rule of recognition rules. And, um, I hope, uh, you enjoyed learning about the rule of recognition or, um, or listening to somebody rant about it. Um, uh, I hope, I hope, uh, you go crazy for the rule of recognition and we're going to have heart, um, take us out from this, uh, stay safe, everyone. Take care. Bye.
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