However, the most interesting and, from a positivist point of view, the most problematic aspect of legal principles is their moral dimension. According to Dworkin`s theory, principles, unlike legal rules, which may or may not have something to do with morality, are essentially moral in their content. In fact, it is partly a moral consideration that determines whether a legal principle exists or not. What for? According to Dworkin, there is a principle of law if that principle results from the best moral and political interpretation of past judicial and legislative decisions in the area concerned. In other words, legal principles occupy an intermediate space between legal norms and moral principles. Legal regulations are drawn up by recognized institutions and their validity results from their source. Moral principles are what they are by virtue of their content, and their validity depends purely on the content. Legal principles, on the other hand, derive their validity from a combination of source and substantive considerations. As Dworkin put it in the most general terms, « According to the law as integrity, legal propositions are true if they are contained in or flow from the principles of justice, fairness and due process that offer or derive from the best constructive interpretation of the legal practice of the community » (Dworkin 1986, 225). The validity of a legal principle then derives from a combination of facts and moral considerations. The facts concern past legal decisions that have taken place in the area in question, and moral and political considerations concern how these past decisions can best be explained by good moral principles. Are first-order legal theories inherent or necessarily evaluative, or can they be purely descriptive? The extent to which law can actually guide behavior by providing its subjects with reasons to act was questioned by a highly influential group of jurists in the first half of the 20th century, the so-called school of legal realism.

American legal realists have argued that our ability to predict the outcome of legal cases based on legal norms is rather limited. In the most difficult cases, which are usually decided by the courts of appeal, the legislation itself is radically uncertain as to the outcome of the cases. Legal realists believed that lawyers interested in the predictive question of what the courts will actually decide in difficult cases need to conduct sociological and psychological research to develop theoretical tools that allow us to predict legal outcomes. Thus, legal realism was primarily an attempt to introduce the social sciences into the field of jurisprudence for predictive purposes. The extent to which this scientific project has been successful is controversial. In any case, legal realism has paid very little attention to the question of the normativity of law, that is, to the question of how the law guides behavior in cases where it seems sufficiently precise. Legal philosophy is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of law and the relationship of law to other normative systems, especially ethics and political philosophy. [1] [2] It asks questions such as « What is law? », « What are the criteria for legal validity? » and « What is the relationship between law and morality? » Legal philosophy and jurisprudence are often used interchangeably, although jurisprudence sometimes includes forms of reasoning that fit into economics or sociology. [3] [4] Another approach to natural law jurisprudence generally states that human rights must respond to compelling reasons to act.

There are two interpretations of the jurisprudential attitude of natural law. In ancient China, Taoists, Confucians, and legalists all had competing theories of jurisprudence. [9] Ronald Dworkin rejects the positivism thesis on the grounds that there are certain legal norms whose authority cannot be explained by social facts. When deciding difficult cases, for example, judges often invoke moral principles that, according to Dworkin, do not derive their legal authority from the social criteria of legality contained in a rule of recognition (Dworkin 1977, 40). However, since judges are required to take these principles into account where appropriate, they must be characterized as law. Thus, Dworkin concludes: « If we treat principles as laws, we must reject the first principle of positivists, namely that the law of a community is distinguished from other social norms by a test in the form of a master rule » (Dworkin 1977, p. 1977).