,LJU4801 October November Portfolio 2025 - Due
Date 28 October 2025; 100 % TRUSTED workings,
Expert Solved, Explanations and Solutions.
Introduction — the problem framed
Nelson Mandela’s 1962 statement raises a classic question in
legal philosophy: what is the relationship between law and
morality, and what follows when they conflict? Mandela claims
that a person of conscience may be morally required to disobey
a law that is unjust, and that such disobedience—even when it
violates positive law—can be morally justified and performed
with acceptance of legal consequences. To analyse this claim we
must map the principal positions in the law–morality debate
(natural law and legal positivism, and some hybrid views),
examine theories of civil disobedience, and see where
Mandela’s stance fits and what philosophical objections and
defences it attracts.
1. Two broad families: Natural law and Legal Positivism
Natural law (classical and modern forms) claims a vital,
normative connection between law and morality. Classical
natural law figures (e.g., Aquinas) argued that an ordinance that
is gravely unjust is not a true law in the fullest sense (“an unjust
law is no law at all”). Modern natural law theorists (e.g., John
Finnis) maintain that legal validity ultimately depends on
, conformity with certain moral standards or practical reason; at
minimum, law must serve basic goods and respect fundamental
human goods. Natural law thus supports Mandela’s intuition:
laws that systematically oppress and violate moral rights are not
deserving of obedience and may be morally nullified.
Legal positivism separates law and morality. Classic positivists
(Jeremy Bentham, John Austin) define law as commands backed
by sanctions and focus on social facts (what the sovereign
commands). H. L. A. Hart refined positivism by introducing rule-
systems and the rule of recognition: legal validity is a matter of
social sources, not moral merit. Hart allows that law and
morality can interact (you may morally critique laws; laws can
incorporate moral standards), but he rejects any necessary
conceptual link that makes an immoral rule not law. Joseph
Raz’s “service conception” emphasizes authority and the
reasons the law gives citizens to follow it; Raz argues that
legitimate legal authority can demand obedience even when
some laws are imperfect.
Between strict separation and full fusion there are inclusive
positivists (who allow that moral considerations may be part of
the criteria of legal validity in some systems) and exclusive
positivists (who deny this possibility). But even inclusive
positivism still treats legal validity as grounded in social facts
that may incorporate moral considerations, not as automatically
grounded in morality.
Date 28 October 2025; 100 % TRUSTED workings,
Expert Solved, Explanations and Solutions.
Introduction — the problem framed
Nelson Mandela’s 1962 statement raises a classic question in
legal philosophy: what is the relationship between law and
morality, and what follows when they conflict? Mandela claims
that a person of conscience may be morally required to disobey
a law that is unjust, and that such disobedience—even when it
violates positive law—can be morally justified and performed
with acceptance of legal consequences. To analyse this claim we
must map the principal positions in the law–morality debate
(natural law and legal positivism, and some hybrid views),
examine theories of civil disobedience, and see where
Mandela’s stance fits and what philosophical objections and
defences it attracts.
1. Two broad families: Natural law and Legal Positivism
Natural law (classical and modern forms) claims a vital,
normative connection between law and morality. Classical
natural law figures (e.g., Aquinas) argued that an ordinance that
is gravely unjust is not a true law in the fullest sense (“an unjust
law is no law at all”). Modern natural law theorists (e.g., John
Finnis) maintain that legal validity ultimately depends on
, conformity with certain moral standards or practical reason; at
minimum, law must serve basic goods and respect fundamental
human goods. Natural law thus supports Mandela’s intuition:
laws that systematically oppress and violate moral rights are not
deserving of obedience and may be morally nullified.
Legal positivism separates law and morality. Classic positivists
(Jeremy Bentham, John Austin) define law as commands backed
by sanctions and focus on social facts (what the sovereign
commands). H. L. A. Hart refined positivism by introducing rule-
systems and the rule of recognition: legal validity is a matter of
social sources, not moral merit. Hart allows that law and
morality can interact (you may morally critique laws; laws can
incorporate moral standards), but he rejects any necessary
conceptual link that makes an immoral rule not law. Joseph
Raz’s “service conception” emphasizes authority and the
reasons the law gives citizens to follow it; Raz argues that
legitimate legal authority can demand obedience even when
some laws are imperfect.
Between strict separation and full fusion there are inclusive
positivists (who allow that moral considerations may be part of
the criteria of legal validity in some systems) and exclusive
positivists (who deny this possibility). But even inclusive
positivism still treats legal validity as grounded in social facts
that may incorporate moral considerations, not as automatically
grounded in morality.
