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It's uncontroversial that politics shapes the law. The tough question is how exactly that works: which kinds of political action have a law-shaping effect and how they produce that effect. Consider the enactment of a statute. A. Which precise aspect of the action is relevant to the legal impact of the enactment (the change in legal rights and obligations that obtains without further such action)? B. Why - what gives some aspect of the action its legal relevance? Analogous questions also arise in connection with the explanation of some other phenomena, including making a promise, decision or request - actions or attitudes which are generally understood to result in some distinctive obligations or to have some other distinctive normative significance or impact, or at least to be capable of so doing. The relevant theoretical choices are posed particularly clearly in these domains, so I explore them in some detail in relation to promising.

ISBN: 0415878187

Many philosophers take the view that, while coercion is a prominent and enduring feature of legal practice, its existence does not reflect a deep, constitutive property of law and therefore coercion plays at best a very limited role in the explanation of law's nature. This view has become more or less the orthodoxy in modern jurisprudence. I argue that an interesting and plausible possible role for coercion in the explanation of law is untouched by the arguments in support of the orthodox view. Since my main purpose is to clear the ground for the alternative, I spell out the orthodox view in some detail. I then briefly sketch the alternative. Finally, I turn to Jules Coleman's discussion of the alternative.

ISBN: 1467-9337