What is the Philosophy of Law?

The philosophy of law is not separate from ethics and political philosophy, but dependent upon them. It extends them by that special attention to the past (of sources, constitutions, contracts, acquired rights, etc.) which—for reasons articulated by the philosophy of law—is characteristic of juridical thought. Positivism is coherently sustainable only as a thesis of or topic within natural law theory, which adequately incorporates it but remains engaged with ethical and political issues and challenges, both perennial and peculiar to this age. The article concludes by proposing a task for legal philosophy in coming years, in light of the fact that legal systems are not simply sets of norms.