The Conceptual Function of Law: Law, Coercion, and Keeping the Peace

Forthcoming in Luka Burazin, Kenneth Einar Himma, and Corrado Roversi (eds.), LAW
AS AN ARTIFACT,(Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2017)

Kenneth Einar Himma

University of Washington

Abstract: A legal system is understood to be a social artifact in the sense that it is

constituted by certain social facts. As such, legal systems have a characteristic use (or
purpose) that constitutes what I will call its conceptual function. In what follows, I will
argue that the conceptual function of a legal system is to keep the peace by regulating
behavior through legal norms. Further, insofar as a legal system is an institution that is
created to solve problems of beings like us in a world like ours, I will argue that the manner
in which legal systems, as a conceptual matter, attempt to keep the peace is by authorizing
coercive enforcement mechanisms for some violations of law.

I. Introduction: The Concepts of Law and Artifact

Although there might be many positions in the conceptual theory of artifacts that are
contested, this much is not: artifacts are contrived and constructed by human beings.
Risto Hilpinin provides what I take to be a canonical definition in the very first sentence
of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the topic. According to Hilpinin,
An artifact may be defined as an object that has been intentionally made or produced for
a certain purpose.1 As he subsequently explains:

Aristotle makes here a distinction between natural objects and artifacts

(artificial products), and describes the latter as products of the art of
making things. The art of making something involves intentional agency;
thus an artifact may be defined as an object that has been intentionally
made for some purpose. An artifact has necessarily a maker or an
author; thus artifact and author can be regarded as correlative concepts:
An object is an artifact if and only if it has an author. The concept of
authorship is here assumed to involve the same kind and degree of
intentionality as the concept of an artifact.2

Here it should be noted that Hilpinin is not making any claims about the conceptual
function of an artifact; he is merely indicating that artifacts are not naturally occurring

This paper has been funded, in part, by the Department of History and Philosophy, Tomsk State University,
Tomsk, Russian Federation.
1
Risto Hilpinen, Artifacts, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Edward N. Zalta, ed.), Winter 2011;
available at http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/artifact/. I cite the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy because what is reproduced there may be presumed to enjoy a consensus among the relevant
community.
2
Ibid.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2905469

objects and hence are artificial products. Likewise, Blacks Online Law Dictionary
defines artifact as an object that is handmade or the result of human activity.3

Indeed, the conceptual relationship between the terms artificial and artifact
should be obvious. As Oxford Online Dictionary defines it, artificial means [m]ade or
produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally.4 Similarly, Blacks Law
Dictionary defines the term artificial as follows: As opposed to natural, means
created or produced by man. Humanly contrived.5 It should be clear that two terms
are conceptually linked in that both pick out objects that are contrived and manufactured
by human beings.

Nevertheless, the conceptual relationship between the two notions is not one of
logical equivalence. While it is certainly true, as a conceptual matter, that all artifacts are
artificial, it is not true that all artificial objects are artifacts. If I take a few Legos and just
throw them together in a random way, it is true that I have constructed something that is
both an object and artificial; however, in the absence of some sort of purpose, as
Halpinins definition indicates, it is not properly conceived as an artifact. An artifact
must have some kind of use although what that use is and who defines it is somewhat
contentious.6

In any event, it is taken for granted that laws and legal systems are social artifacts
in the sense that they are human contrivances and not naturally occurring objects.
Indeed, on all accounts of positive law, the existence and content of legal systems and
law can be explained wholly in terms of social facts.

Legal positivism, of course, is robustly committed to the view that law is

artifactual in character. To begin the existence and content of a rule of recognition is
explained in terms of a social convention among officials, which is a social fact and
hence artificial in character in the sense of being a non-naturally occurring object.
Likewise, the existence and content of valid legal norms is explained by official
conformity to the rule of recognition in their lawmaking and adjudicating activities; such
conformity is also artificial in the same sense. Both the rule of recognition and the laws
valid under them are artificial in this sense.

By itself, as we saw above, the claim that law is artificial does not imply that law
is an artifact; however, given that law is characteristically used, at a minimum, to guide
behavior (which is a purpose), it follows that law is an artifact. Every law is a non-
natural occurring object that is used for some purpose, and is hence not only artificial but
also an artifact. As the existence of a legal system requires merely the existence of a rule

3
http://thelawdictionary.org/letter/a/page/137/
4
Oxford Online Dictionary; available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/artificial.
5
Blacks Law Dictionary, Artificial
6
The purpose of an art object is for presentation, on the most influential contemporary theory, to an
audience for the purpose of creating an aesthetic experience.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2905469

of recognition and the fact of citizen conformity to valid legal norms, it seems clear that,
on the positivist view, law is an artifact all the way down.7

The most currently influential version of natural law theory as a theory in

conceptual jurisprudence, like positivism, takes law to be wholly artifactual in character.
Natural law theories of positive law typically have two pieces. The first is a theory of
objective morality, according to which, among other things, the natural law consists of
principles of objective morality that have the content they do in virtue of the nature of
things in the universe, including human beings. The second is a theory of the positive
law that holds that legal systems and laws are social artifacts in the sense of being
manufactured by human beings, but that it is in the nature of these things, that their
content ought to be just, and thereby that their content ought to conform to the relevant
natural laws.

This view does not, on the surface, differ much from legal positivism with respect
to the social and artifactual nature of law and legal systems. As far as I can tell, the only
real disagreement here is whether there is something in laws nature that gestures in the
direction of laws aspiring to be objectively just as a conceptual requirement of a legal
system. Since merely aspiring to be objectively just but failing to do so would not entail
that a norm was legally invalid, this particular difference does not have any implications
that would distinguish the views with respect to their artifactual character. It seems
perfectly reasonable to think that, on this view, laws and legal systems are artifactual all
the way down.

One might think that the strongest of natural law theories imply that law is not
wholly artifactual since there are necessary moral constraints on the content of law. But
the existence of moral constraints on what a structured group of people might do does not
imply that the institution constituted by that structure is not an institution of justice that
is wholly artifactual in character.

Regardless of whether it is a conceptual truth that there are objective moral

constraints on legal validity, laws and legal systems are obviously not naturally occurring
objects (even if it makes sense to think of morality as naturally occurring). The claim
that an objective morality is not artifactual does not imply that a non-naturally occurring
institution constructed, in part, out of a non-artifactual moral piece is not artifactual.
Material artifacts are usually composed out of naturally occurring physical objects and
that does not entail those objects are not wholly artifactual.

Consider the simple example of a boundary between two countries that coincides
with the path of a river.8 The river, of course, is a natural occurring object that might
very well define the location of the boundary for various geopolitical reasons; however, it

7
The term law is ambiguous as between referring to a legal system and referring to individual norms of a
legal system. The thesis of this paper is concerned with the conceptual function of a legal system, as the
conceptual function of legal norms presents comparatively few puzzles of theoretical interest. Norms guide
behaviors in particular directions.
8
I am indebted to Luka Burazin for this helpful example.

3
would be a clear mistake to think of the boundary as being anything less than wholly
artifactual in nature. Although the boundary is defined by the river and might be used by
people to recognize where the boundary line is, it is implausible to think of a boundary as
even partly naturally occurring. Boundaries are artifactual.

As a general matter, it is worth noting that the fact that the operations of
something considered artifactual is limited by certain features of the world, whether
normative or not, does not play a role in determining whether or to what extent that thing
is artifactual. That there are physical laws that limit what rockets are capable of does not
make a rocket any the less artifactual. That there are such constraints casts no doubt, nor
should it, on the claim that a rocket is wholly artifactual assuming that it is still
plausible to think that artifactuality is a property that admits of degrees.

The general point here is that the mere fact that a human contrivance is
constrained with respect to its design, structure, or purpose by descriptive laws of nature
or normative objective moral norms does not bear on whether the contrivance is an
artifact. As Raimo Tuomela puts the point:

Collective construction is conventional in the sense that one can imagine

alternative constructions that could be taken to be true.
However, collective construction is not unconstrained as to its
content, because, e.g., causality and the physical laws of the universe and
also human culture underlie what can be feasibly rationally constructed,
and also determine much of what social constructions such as institutions
will ontologically lead to in the social world.9

It bears noting that Tuomela holds that artifactuality is limited neither by physical laws or
laws of human culture, which is a gesture in the direction of ruling out, at least, the role
conventional morality as playing a role in constraining what would count as an artifact.

This would seem to imply that social institutions, such as law, are wholly
artifactual despite any such constraints.10 Indeed, as he puts it, [s]ocial artifacts such as
social institutions are created (not always intentionally) and maintained by us (the group
members) for us [b]ecause in a world without human beings or human-like beings and
their conceptual activities, there would be no institutional facts.11 That makes law an
artifact no matter what conceptual theory of law one chooses. In the next section, I will
discuss artifacts and their functions.

2. Artifacts: Uses and Purposes

9
Raimo Tuomela, SOCIAL ONTOLOGY (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 8. Emphasis
added.
10
Ibid., 38.
11
Ibid., 214.

4
As mentioned above, artifacts are taken to have a use; an artificial object that has no use
or purpose remains artificial but it not an artifact. Artifacts are characterized in part as
having uses or purposes, and these uses or purposes are fairly characterized as conceptual
functions, although this notion is not always well explained. The intuitive idea is that any
object contrived and constructed by human beings for a use that meets certain standards
has a purpose, and this purpose constitutes its conceptual function. This is surely true of
material artifacts, and the idea that material artifacts have a function of this sort is
uncontested among theorists specializing in the conceptual theory of artifacts.12

The question of whether artifacts like legal systems and norms have conceptual
functions is not one that has attracted a great deal of theoretical attention; however, it
seems to be a commonplace that law has a conceptual function. John Austin defined the
notion of a legal norm, as opposed to a legal system, in terms of its conceptual function: [a]
law may be defined as a rule laid down for the guidance of an intelligent being by an
intelligent being having power over him.13 The next major theorist to explicitly articulate
the idea that law has a conceptual function was Lon L. Fuller. As he put it: [t]he only
formula that might be called a definition of law offered in these writings is by now
thoroughly familiar: law is the enterprise of subjecting human conduct to the governance of
rules. 14

H.L.A. Hart is commonly assumed to hold that law has a conceptual function, but a
closer look at his remarks indicates skepticism about the idea. As is well known, Hart states,
it is quite vain to seek any more specific purpose which law as such serves beyond
providing guides to human conduct and standards of criticism of such conduct.15 Although
this would seem to indicate a commitment to the idea that law qua legal system has a
conceptual function, the entire passage in which these remarks appear evince a more
skeptical attitude:

[W]hereas Dworkins interpretive legal theory in all its forms rests on the
presupposition that the point or purpose of law and legal practice is to justify
coercion, it certainly is not and never has been my view that law has this as
its point or purpose. Like other forms of positivism my theory makes no
claim to identify the point or purpose of law and legal practices as such; so
there is nothing in my theory to support Dworkins view, which I certainly
do not share that the purpose of law is to justify the use of coercion. In fact,
I think it quite vain to seek any more specific purpose which law as such
serves beyond providing guides to human conduct and standards of criticism
of such conduct (CL 248-49).

12
Although art-objects might be taken to be an exception to that thesis, conceptual accounts of art nearly
always include some kind of conceptual function; the most commonly accepted account, for example,
explains the nature of art as an artifact that is presented to an audience for an aesthetic experience.
13
John Austin, Lectures on Jurisprudence or the Philosophy of Positive Law (St. Clair Shores, MI: Scholarly
Press, 1977), p. 5; emphasis added. (Hereafter referred to LJ).
14
Lon L. Fuller, THE MORALITY OF LAW (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), 106. Hereinafter
referred to as ML.
15
H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law, 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 248-49.
Hereinafter referred to as CL.

5
 What is striking about this passage is the conspicuous skepticism Hart evinces for
the project of finding a conceptual function for law, as well as the idea that it is even
necessary for the project of conceptual jurisprudence that the concept of law include
reference to such a function. Skepticism for the project of identifying a conceptual function
of law can be seen in the very last sentence of the text quoted immediately above; he begins
that sentence with the idea that it is quite vain to seek any more specific purpose of law
than that it guides conduct. Skepticism for the idea that it is necessary to specify a
conceptual function of law to fully articulate the nature of law is expressed in the second
sentence of that quoted text: Like other forms of positivism my theory makes no claim to
identify the point or purpose of law and legal practices as such (CL 248; emphasis
added).

These remarks coupled with the facts that they are the only remarks Hart seems
to have made on the subject and were made in the Postscript, and not THE CONCEPT OF
LAW, itself indicate a clear skepticism about the relevant projects. I see little reason to
accept Harts skepticism given the artifactual character of law. As was seen above, what
distinguishes the artifactual from the merely artificial is that the former has some kind of
use. As will be seen below, it is uncontroversial among conceptual theories of artifacts (of
which law is one type) that artifacts have conceptual functions although they disagree as to
how best to characterize the notion of a conceptual function.

III. The Concept of an Artifactual Function

The issue of how to flesh out the concept of an artifactual function is a contested one in
the literature on the nature of artifacts. Accounts of artifactual function include so-called
intentionalist accounts, which conceive of artifact function as directly and exhaustively
determined by individual and/or collective human intentions,16 and non-intentionalist (or
reproduction) accounts, which conceive artifact function as the function that they have
been historically reproduced to serve (Preston, 226).

The difference between the two accounts has to do with the prominence of the
role human intentions serve. In the intentionalist accounts, human intentions directly
determine the relevant function. In the reproductive accounts, which accord a primary
role in determining artifactual function to ancestry or system context (Preston, 226),
human intentions play a secondary role insofar as they are necessary for the histories
and reproductions of social systems (Preston, 226). The difference, on Prestons view,
is that the relevant human intentions are necessary and sufficient to determine an
artifacts conceptual function on an intentionalist account, while on a reproduction
account, the relevant human intentions are necessary but not sufficient, to determine an
artifacts conceptual function.

16
Beth Preston, Philosophical Theories of Artifact Function, in Anthonie W.M. Meijers (Editor), Dov M.
Gabbay (Series Editor), Paul Thagard (Series Editor), John Woods (Series Editor), PHILOSOPHY OF
TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING SCIENCES (North Holland, 2009), p. 218. Hereinafter Preston.

6
 Although of obvious theoretical interest, this difference is not particularly relevant
here inasmuch as whatever intentions might be behind the creation and maintenance of a
functioning legal system will likely coincide with the reasons for the history of
reproduction of legal systems and the underlying intentions that explain that history and
reproduction. Either way, the assessment of the conceptual function of a legal system
will focus on the intentions regarding the purposes that a legal system is created to serve
or historically has served. It is doubtful, as far as I can see, that the content of the
relevant intentions will turn on whether those intentions play a primary or secondary role
in the manner described above. In either case, the relevant intentions will gesture, I will
argue, in the direction of law being used to keep the peace.

Another distinction that should be mentioned here pertains to whether a

conceptual function is uniquely performed by one kind of artifact or can be performed by
distinct kinds of artifacts (i.e. is multiply realizable). Chopsticks might be an example of
something that can be used to perform the same function as a fork. The argument in this
essay is agnostic with respect to the whether the conceptual function of law is unique to
law or multiply realizable.

A third relevant issue is whether an artifact is multiply utilizable in the sense that
it can be used to perform more than one function. As Preston points out, a uniform can
be used for different functions, such as to keep one warm, distinguish friends from foes,
and display rank, among other things. There is little reason to doubt that laws and legal
systems can be used to do different things although the issue of by whom is an
interesting one that cannot be addressed here. For example, laws and legal systems can
be used, in some more or less casual sense, to oppress some, enrich others, etc. The list
of things that can be done with a legal system might be quite long, as human beings are
quite ingenious in adapting tools to various purposes.

But in order to do any of these things, there are some things that a law or a legal
system would have to do and that is to coherently guide behavior. Legal systems and
laws are capable of oppressing some or enrich others only insofar as at least some of
these norms sometimes succeed in guiding behavior. As Hart rightly points out, the
minimum conditions for the existence of a legal system include that valid legal norms are
efficacious in guiding behavior (CL 116). As Hart put the matter:

There are therefore two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for
the existence of a legal system. On the one hand, those rules of behaviour
which are valid according to the systems ultimate criteria of validity must
be generally obeyed, and, on the other hand, its rules of recognition
specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and
adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of
official behaviour by its officials (CL 116; emphasis added).

Harts use of obey suggests that he believes that conforming behavior must be
motivated by a desire to conform to the law; however, this is not a charitable construction
of his remarks. The fact that the vast majority of people do not commit murder likely has

7
little, if anything, to do with the fact that it is illegal. Anyone with a strong moral
compass will not be tempted to kill an innocent person.

It is true, of course, that there are many people who lack such compunctions or
who misinterpret the requirements of morality in a particular case and would attempt
what is legally prohibited as murder if not for the law. Although it is clear that the
criminal law does not always deter people from committing murder, it is surely does in
some cases. In these cases, the overarching point of the law is to keep the peace a point
that I will make much more of below. For now, it suffices to observe that whether or not
the law is multiply utilizable in the relevant sense, there are certain functions that law
must perform in order to accomplish the vast majority of these purposes and keeping
the peace by efficaciously guiding behavior in some cases is surely one of those
purposes.

This suggests that functions should be distinguished in a number of ways. The

possibility of law being multiply utilizable suggests that there are basic functions and
derived functions. The derived functions of law would be those that law could not
perform without law being able to perform some basic function that is not derived from
other functions. Again, one candidate for a basic function of a legal system would be to
guide citizen behavior in such a manner as to keep the peace.

Further, this suggests the familiar but related distinction between laws conceptual
and accidental functions. There are certain functions that any artifact of some kind must
be capable of performing to count as a thing of that kind; this is its conceptual function.
That is, a conceptual function is a function that something of a certain kind must be
capable of performing in virtue of the nature of things of its kind. To count as a
hammer, something must be capable of whacking a nail into some extended material
object. Of course, this is not to deny that some artifacts characterized as hammers are
incapable of performing that function; a broken hammer will not work. A television
might malfunction for some unexpected reason yet still be correctly characterized as a
television; that it is correctly characterized as malfunctioning makes sense only
insofar as televisions have some conceptual function.

Likewise, there are certain functions that are accidental in the sense that they can
be performed only in virtue of having certain characteristics that enable it to perform its
conceptual function. One accidental function of a hammer is that it can perform the
function of killing another person by bludgeoning that person to death; this it can do only
in virtue of the design features that make it possible to drive a nail into an extended
substance. Insofar as the head of a hammer is hard and heavy enough to drive a metal
nail into another hard extended surface, it is hard and heavy enough to cause fatal injury
to a person using the same motions used to drive a nail into the wall. A hammer that is
broken in virtue of the head being irreparably detached from its handle might be able to
cause fatal injury (e.g. by throwing it at someones head), but the cause of that fatal
injury will not be a matter of the victims being hammered to death.

8
 As is readily evident, the two distinctions are logically related. While the
concepts of a conceptual and a basic function seem clearly different in intension or
propositional meaning, they do seem to have the same extensions or reference classes.
The class of functions picked out, referred to, or denoted by the term basic would seem
to be the same class as those picked out, referred to, or denoted by the term conceptual.
Nevertheless, nothing of importance for purposes of this paper turns on this; it is just
helpful to understand the various distinctions that might be used to identify the functions
of a legal system. What is relevant with respect to the thesis of this paper is the notion of
a conceptual function, as this paper is concerned to identify the conceptual function of
laws and legal systems.

The project of identifying the conceptual function of an artifact is not as simple as

it might first appear. Identifying that function is more than a matter of simply specifying
some function, f, that it can perform. It is also a matter of determining why that artifact is
needed to do f; that is to say, it is also a matter of determining what problem that artifact
is needed or used to solve. Although that latter task might be obvious depending on the
artifact, it need not always be so. Clearly, the fact that a hammer can drive nails through
hard surfaces is a function that is needed because human beings have plenty of reasons to
want to join one hard surface with another using an object like a nail, and that is
something that cannot be done without artifacts that can accomplish that in one way or
another. We are vulnerable to the elements, so we need shelter that is constructed out of
hard, durable substances that can protect us against those elements. It is obvious that a
hammer can address that problem by joining large surfaces of wood together to shelter us
from natural forces that can cause us harm. The reason that there is little reason to make
much noise about this in the case of a hammer is that (1) it is obvious and (2) the
philosophical project of specifying the nature of a hammer is just not that important.

Identifying the conceptual function of law presents a very different problem of

much greater philosophical importance. To begin, the philosophical project of specifying
the nature of law is of substantial theoretical interest because of what law does in our
lives namely, constrains our freedom by limiting what acts can legally be performed.

More importantly, it is not entirely obvious what problem law is needed to solve.
Consider, for example, the issue of identifying the conceptual function of a rule of
recognition. Clearly, the function is to guide the behavior of officials in making,
changing, and adjudicating law.17 But it might not be obvious what problem the rule of
recognition is needed to solve. Anticipating an important but underappreciated issue,
Jules Coleman argued that the rule of recognition was needed to solve a coordination
problem if law was to be possible; however, he later abandoned the view that the rule
should be regarded as a coordination convention, in essence, because he realized that it
matters a great deal, morally and politically, how a rule of recognition provides for the
legislative and adjudicative function.18 As Andrei Marmor persuasively argued, people
are not comparatively indifferent to how a rule of recognition coordinates such activities

17
I would add that the function also includes guiding officials behavior by way of enforcing law. We will
see how that works below.
18
Jules Coleman, THE PRACTICE OF PRINCIPLE (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 92-95.

9
as long it succeeds in doing so.19 As he puts the point, it does matter to us who makes
the law in our society, and how it is done.20 What problem a rule of recognition solves
is, clearly, of a very different nature than the problem of what side of the road to drive on.

Nevertheless, Coleman makes a very important observation about law in the same
discussion. In particular, he notices that there must be some problem that law is
contrived to solve (the rule of recognition being needed, on his view, to enable officials
to solve that problem) and one that, on my view, is largely correct and gestures in the
direction of the problem that a legal system is needed to solve by regulating human
conduct by legal norms:

If Hobbes is right, then the state of nature is a situation that may best be
modeled game theoretically as a prisoners dilemma. Law provides a
potential solution to the prisoners dilemma. But law can solve this
problem only if legal authority is possible; and legal authority is possible,
on Harts view, only if there is a rule of recognition that sets out criteria of
legality and imposes a duty on officials to apply the norms that satisfy
those criteria. The rule of recognition does not solve the prisoners
dilemma. Law solves that problem. Instead, the rule of recognition solves
a coordination problem that must be solved if law is to be possible.21

Although Coleman goes on to reject the claim that law solves a prisoners dilemma
problem,22 I will argue below that the problem a legal system solves is something like the
problem posed by the so-called state of nature (though I have nothing to say whether it is
best described or modeled as a prisoners dilemma), and that this must be taken into
account in specifying the conceptual function of a legal system.

IV. The Conceptual Function of a Legal System

As should be clear, the essay is concerned with the conceptual function of law qua legal
system, and not law qua norm, but the reference class of the term legal system depends
on the breadth of the relevant concept of law that underlies it. Law can be used in a
broad sense that would encompass the rules of a chess association. In this case, the notion
of a legal system would have similar application that would warrant characterizing the
chess association itself as a legal system.

19
Andrei Marmor, SOCIAL CONVENTIONS: FROM LANGUAGE TO LAW (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2009), 169-171.
20
Ibid., 171.
21
Coleman, 93. Coleman goes on to suggest that law need not be viewed as the solution to any problem:
[W]e need not regard law as a solution to any sort of problem at all let alone one that can be modeled
game-theoretically. Law may exist in order to make more determinate the requirements of a shared
political morality, or to organize society in a way that enables individuals to be responsible for the lives
they lead. Or law can create an efficient scheme of production and distribution. Ibid. It seems clear that
all these other uses are intended to solve some kind of problem if not one that can be modeled game-
theoretically.
22
See Note 28.

10
 This is not the sense of law that is the subject of jurisprudence, conceptual or
otherwise. The concept of law of interest to legal theorists, lawyers, and law students
concerns institutional entities that exercise broad authority to regulate the behavior of
citizens. These institutional entities enact norms that contain what Hart calls the
minimum content of the natural law, which include norms that prohibit violence and
regulate property in an orderly way. The relevant concept of law, then, applies to the law
of states, conceived broadly to apply to a host of municipal entities, such as city
governments. Thus construed, states are extensionally, if not intensionally, equivalent to
legal systems in the following sense: for all x, x is a legal system if and only if x is a state.

Accordingly, the task of identifying the conceptual function of a legal system

requires an investigation into the purposes of the state. In particular, the issue is to
ascertain which problems that arise among human beings can reasonably be addressed by
a state. In other words, the question is what are the needs that arise among human beings
that create the need for a state? Addressing this issue will enable us to identify the
conceptual function of a state, construed to include all municipal entities. Addressing
this issue will thus help us to identify the conceptual function of a legal system.

Some care is needed here to specify the requisite level of abstraction. Joseph Raz
argues that law purports to provide exclusionary reasons for action. This might be
correct at some high level of abstraction that would capture the objective reality of what
law does or should do.

But that level of abstraction is inappropriately high here because the relevant
problem here is to identify conscious elements, such as beliefs and intentions, that occur
in the minds of human beings, as they understand those elements. It is true that one
might, as Raz does, be able to plausibly model some of those elements as functioning as
exclusionary reasons in the minds of the relevant human beings. But that is simply
implausible as an explanation of how human beings understand their own mind states and
reasoning in those circumstances. For my part, it never occurred to me that my reasoning
with norms could be modeled by exclusionary reasons until I already had my Ph.D. and
J.D. in hand; it was only after I had both degrees that I read the relevant works of Raz.
Indeed, the fact that his development and explication of the issue has been so rightly
celebrated indicates that this is not the way we characteristically explain our own
reasoning in such cases. Razs contribution is novel because no one else ever noticed that
and that tells you something important about whether people are aware, assuming Raz
is correct, that some reasons function as exclusionary in our deliberations.

The issue, then, is to attempt to determine what human problems, from the point
of view of ordinary folk, give rise to a need for institutional normative systems like
states. One promising place to start, if somewhat unusual for a conceptual account of a
legal system, would be with normative political theory. In particular, it would be helpful
to look to theories intended to state the conditions a state must satisfy to be morally
justified for a sense of what purposes states are intended to serve. Indeed, many, if not

11
most, of these theories of legitimacy are grounded, whether explicitly or implicitly, in
concerns about the problems that would arise in an anarchic condition.

Earlier, I stated that Coleman gestured in the direction of the problem that legal
systems are contrived or used to resolve when he suggested that law could be conceived
as solving a problem that arises in connection with Hobbess conception of the state of
nature. Although the problem of surviving in a state of nature as Hobbes describes it
might be an example of a prisoners dilemma, that characterization seems to understate
the problems that arise in the state of nature. The state of nature, as Hobbes and others
conceive it, is a pre-social condition of anarchy one that arises prior to any successful
communal living in society and hence as a condition utterly bereft of the benefits of
social cooperation. As Hobbes pessimistically describes this condition:

There Is Alwayes Warre Of Every One Against Every One Hereby it is

manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep
them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such
a warre, as is of every man, against every man. In such condition, there
is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and
consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the
commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no
Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force;
no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no
Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger
of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and
short.23

This terrible state of war of all against all arises, on Hobbess view, because human
beings of roughly equal abilities (all abilities considered and weighed together) must
compete to survive in a world in which there are not enough material resources to satisfy
human needs, much less wants. The war of all against all arises because, whether capable
of altruistic motivation or not, human beings are primarily motivated by self-interest and,
if pressed, will tend to place their needs above those of others.

Hobbes, of course, begins from this state to argue that human beings would
contract with one another to submit to an absolute sovereign in order to keep the peace
among human beings. Keeping the peace is an important precondition for being able to
engage in socially cooperative activities that enable us to increase the quantity and
quality of material resources available for human sustenance and comfort. Since human
beings are conceived to be rationally self-interested, Hobbes argues that pre-societal
schemes of cooperation are not possible because human beings cannot trust each other
not to defect on such schemes, leading to more conflict. This is why, as Coleman points
out, the state of nature can be conceived as presenting a prisoners dilemma albeit of
the worst imaginable type.

23
Hobbes, Leviathan

12
 Although Hobbes utilizes this anarchic state as a way of arguing that an absolute
monarchy is morally legitimate (i.e. morally justified) on hypothetically consensual
grounds, the social-contract strategy he employs here gestures in the direction of what I
take to be the conceptual function of a legal system. The point of the agreement, on
Hobbess theory, is to solve a problem that arises in the pre-social anarchic state
namely, how to keep the peace among self-interest beings capable of resorting to violence
to solve conflicts over resources in a world of material scarcity.

It is important to note here that such conflicts are not limited to the usual items
that are needed to feed, water, and shelter persons in a fashion they find acceptable. Such
conflicts can arise over mates, as people frequently find themselves competing for the
same male or female for sexual companionship. Murder is a common, if utterly
counterproductive and unhelpful, response to a persons (nearly always a heterosexual
man) not getting or being able to retain the companionship of a woman he wants. In an
anarchic world, people being what they are, the probability of violent conflicts is quite
high. On Hobbess view, what justifies the state in asserting coercive authority over
subjects is that they would consent to such authority as a means of keeping the peace
between them and this suggests that the very point of a legal system is to keep the peace
by creating norms that guide behavior in a way that keeps the peace.

Of course, Hobbess conception of the state of nature, which was subsequently

adopted by Locke, is somewhat problematic for my purposes in two respects. First, he
seems to assume that human beings in the state of nature are incapable of altruistic
motivations. Second, the state of nature is presupposed to be utterly pre-societal in
character and hence without any of the benefits of social cooperation that we have at our
disposal today including all the technological advancements that have enabled us to
grow the stock of material resources to levels that Hobbes likely could not have
imagined.

More contemporary versions of social contract theories of legitimacy attempt to

respond to these unrealistic conceptions of an anarchic state. Robert Nozick attempts to
begin from the most favorable anarchic condition in order to identify the legitimizing
purpose or point of the state:

If one could show that the state would be superior even to this most
favored situation of anarchy, the best that realistically can be hoped for, or
would arise by a process involving no morally impermissible steps, or
would be an improvement if it arose, this would provide a rationale for the
states existence; it would justify the state.24

Notice that, as Nozick describes it, his argument is intended to provide a moral
justification by identifying a rationale for the states existence, which would
presumably be the problem that it is contrived to solve.

24
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 5.

13
 In this favored situation of anarchy, Nozick rejects the Hobbesian assumption that
social cooperation and moral behavior among human beings is impossible. Nozicks
conception of the state of nature conceives it as one in which people generally satisfy
moral constraints and generally act as they should.25 Although Nozick says little about
the other conditions of the state of nature as he conceives it, he seems to want to provide
a comparison point of a condition that is much like ours as is possible given the absence
of a legal system to do the things that legal systems characteristically do.

Even at this early stage in Nozicks discussion, it becomes clear what the point or
purpose (legitimizing rationale, as he might put it) is namely, to keep the peace.
Nozicks argument proceeds by describing a series of morally permissible steps that
people would take, given plausible assumptions about human psychology, that would
culminate in the acceptance of the minimal state a state limited to enacting laws that
protect the natural moral rights to life, liberty, and property, as Locke conceived them.
The very limits that Nozick believes morally constrain what the state can do indicates
that, on his view, the point of the state is to keep the peace. Indeed, his rejection of
coercive redistributional mechanisms indicates that views the states legitimate authority
to keep the peace as limited even where economic inequalities might threaten the peace.

In any event, the discussion proceeds in terms of persons voluntarily forming a

series of associations designed to protect them from assaults on their person or property,
which he calls, appropriately enough, protective associations. Insofar as the protective
associations are intended to protect from assaults originating outside the group, they are
intended to promote a peaceful life within the group. One of the problems, however, with
the simplest association is that it lacks a means to resolve conflicts among members of
the association. While it promotes peace among members of the resulting society by
protecting them from assaults by non-members, it is not fully successful in keeping the
peace because it lacks effective mechanisms for resolving potentially violent conflicts
among members of the group. Accordingly, these associations evolve in scope and
sophistication until the result is a legal system (or state) that is morally constrained to
limit interference with freedom only by means that protect the natural rights to life,
liberty, and property.

Accordingly, Nozick would hold that the basic rationale or conceptual function,
as I put it of the state is to keep the peace. The states performance of this conceptual
function, however, is limited by considerations of political morality, on Nozicks view, to
promulgating laws that protect the natural moral rights to life, liberty, and property. Any
coercive taxation for the purpose of redistributing the scarce material resources of a
society, which is a frequent cause of conflict in our world, is morally illegitimate. Thus,
while Nozick is clear in taking the rationale (or conceptual function) of a state to be
keeping the peace, it is likewise clear that he believes that there are only so many things
that can legitimately be done to achieve this.

This, of course, is not an implausible idea. A totalitarian regime with a police

presence that is capable of monitoring all communications and actions would do a better

25
Ibid., 4.

14
job of keeping the peace than a legitimate state that protects privacy rights. If one knows
that the state is effectively monitoring all ones communications and actions, one is less
likely to attempt a violent crime. That is one reason that convenience stores have obvious
cameras recording what happens in the store. It is also one reason that people favor the
use of video cameras on the streets to monitor the actions of citizens; in a recent poll,
78% of people in the US favor the use of such cameras.26 Indeed, such results seem to
suggest that people are willing to trade some protected rights for increased security.
Once again, it appears that the primary function of the state is best conceived as the
enterprise of keeping the peace.

Similarly, one can see a similar idea emerge in utilitarian theories of legitimacy.
John Stuart Mill, for example, argued that the only purpose for which liberty can
legitimately be restricted is to protect harm to others. In a justly famous passage, he
asserts:

The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled
to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way
of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in
the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That
principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted,
individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any
of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power
can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community,
against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical
or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to
do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will
make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be
wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or
reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for
compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To
justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be
calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct
of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns
others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of
right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual
is sovereign.27

As is readily evident, the very point of the state is to keep the peace by exercising
power to enact laws that protect people from harming one another in attempts to solve
conflicts.

26
See Mark Landler and Dalia Sussman, Poll finds strong acceptance of public surveillance, New York
Times (April 30, 2013); available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/us/poll-finds-strong-acceptance-
for-public-surveillance.html?_r=0.
27
JS Mill, On Liberty, 13; available at: https://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/mill/liberty.pdf.

15
 Intriguingly, Lord Patrick Devlins view that the state may legitimately enact laws
to protect societys shared morality presupposes that the states function is to keep the
peace.28 Devlin believes that such enactments are justified because what binds a society
as a whole is its shared morality that is so vital to society any threats to the shared
morality are threats to the very existence of society itself. Protecting the shared morality
is simply another mechanism for protecting against conflicts that might breach the peace.

As an exhaustive survey of theories of legitimacy is neither needed nor possible

here, a few more brief examples should be sufficient to secure the point. If one takes a
more expansive utilitarian view, as Henry Sidgwick did,29 one might think that the states
legitimate authority permits the state to enact any laws that have the effect of maximizing
utility, which might, depending on the circumstances, allow for the use of redistributional
mechanisms that Nozick rejects on principle.30 Similarly, one might argue, as Robert
George does, that state need not, as a matter of morality, confine itself to merely
protecting citizens from being harmed by others; it may legitimately enact laws that serve
to improve the character of citizens. But one clear benefit of maximizing utility or
improving the character of citizens is to reduce the likelihood of self-help recourse to
violent means of resolving conflicts. In every such case, the function of the legal system
is primarily defined in terms of keeping the peace.

As far as normative political philosophy is concerned, the problem of legitimacy

arises in connection with how a legal system may permissibly do what it is
characteristically used to do namely keep the peace. Different theories might disagree
on what steps are morally justified in doing so, but all presuppose that the basic function
of the state, regardless of whether the state-of-nature device is used, is to prevent self-
interested human beings from resorting to violence, as we are frequently known to do, to
resolve conflicts. In a world like ours with beings like us, violent conflicts are nearly
inevitable and those conflicts have effects on others who are nearby.

Indeed, a legal system or something like it might be needed in Joseph Razs

society of angels for exactly the same purpose. As Raz describes them, the angels are
rational beings who have, and who would acknowledge that they have, more than
enough reasons to obey the law regardless of sanctions31 although they are neither
morally perfect nor morally impeccable. Indeed, the angels, on Razs own
characterization, are no angels at all:

We should not think of the imagined society as a community of self-

denying saints. Its members pursue their self-interest when they think
they are right to do so, and they may be wrong (PRN 160).

28
29
Henry Sidgwick ___.
30
Strictly speaking, there is nothing in the statement of Mills Harm Principle that would logically preclude
the use of such mechanisms if necessary to prevent harm to others. Nothing in the argument here turns on
any assumption on that issue one way or the other.
31
Raz PRN, 159. I have argued elsewhere that the society-of-angels argument does not succeed in showing
that authorized coercive enforcement mechanisms are not a conceptually necessary feature of law. See __.

16
The angels, thus, instantiate two characteristics that are likely to lead to conflicts that
might breach the peace: self-interest and morally imperfect.

In the society of angels, law is needed, on Razs view, because conflict among
self-interested angels might arise that need resolution by an authority that all, by
assumption, are disposed to obey. As Raz observes, its members may pursue many
different and conflicting goals and they may share our difficulties in settling disputes and
resolving conflicts by mutual agreements.32 To coordinate the behavior of angels, Raz
holds that they have, therefore, all the reasons that we have for having legislative
authorities and an executive.33 Further to resolve conflicts of interests and the disputes
that inevitably arise because of them, the angels will also need courts.

While Raz believes that sanctions will not be needed because the angels will be
motivated always to obey law (a psychological characteristic that distinguishes them so
much from human beings one can legitimately deny the relevance of the example to
conceptual jurisprudence), the example, as he describes it, seems to presuppose that law
is needed to keep the peace. After all, why would an authoritative resolution of a conflict
be needed if the angels were unlikely to resort to some socially undesirable self-help
means to settle the conflict in the absence of an authority they can trust? The mere fact
that sanctions are not needed given the angels motivations does not entail that the
otherwise self-interest angels are incapable of socially disruptive responses to conflict.
Indeed, it is not clear why an executive agency would be needed if the angels are not
disposed to such behavior because the function of the executive agency is enforcement of
the laws. In any event, the point is not that Raz fails to describe the example in a way
that rules out the possibility of socially disruptive behavior; it is rather that it is hard to
see how a need for authoritative resolution of conflicts could be needed among a society
of beings utterly disinclined to resort to socially disruptive means of resolving conflict.
Even in Razs society of angels, the problem that law is needed to solve, which defines its
conceptual function, is how to keep the angels from breaching the peace.

Accordingly, it is reasonable to conclude that the problem that a legal system is

contrived to solve is how to keep the peace among self-interested beings likely to breach
that peace and hence that the conceptual function of a legal system is to prevent such
breaches. Of course, the characteristic means by which legal systems do so is through the
regulation of behavior by promulgating norms. Thus, the conceptual function of a legal
system which it must have in virtue of its being artifactual in character is most
plausibly thought to be to keep the peace among self-interested beings likely to resort to
socially disruptive means of resolving conflicts by subjecting their conduct to the
governance of rules.

V. Keeping the Peace and Authorized Coercion

32
Ibid., 159.
33
Ibid., 159. Emphasis added.

17
In the last section, I argued that the conceptual function of a legal system (as opposed to
the conceptual function of a legal norm) is to regulate behavior as a means of keeping the
peace or minimizing potential violent conflicts among self-interest beings that are likely
to disrupt social living in undesirable ways. As it turns out, this conception of laws
conceptual function can be made more specific by considering how, conceived as a
distinctively human institution, law characteristically functions so as to keep the peace.
In particular, I argue that, thus conceived, law can efficaciously keep the peace only by
backing some legal norms with authorized coercive enforcement mechanisms.

In this connection, it would be quite helpful to consider Ronald Dworkins view

on the conceptual function of a legal system. On Dworkins view, the point of a legal
system is to provide a moral justification for the use of a societys coercive enforcement
mechanisms, but that justification is holistic in the sense that it depends on the moral
quality of a societys legal practices considered as a whole.34 As Dworkin defines law,
[t]he law of a community is the scheme of rights and responsibilities that meet that
complex standard [namely, providing a moral justification for use of societys coercive
force]: they license coercion because they flow from the past decisions of the right sort.35
Laws conceptual function is, thus, an irreducibly moral one, on his view.36

It is worth emphasizing here that Dworkins view of the conceptual function of law
presupposes that it is a conceptually necessary feature of a legal system that it includes
authorized coercive enforcement mechanisms for violations of at least some legal norms.
The conceptual function of a legal system could not be to provide a moral justification for
use of the states coercive mechanisms unless it is a conceptually necessary feature of a
legal system that it authorizes coercive enforcement mechanisms for some violations of
law. After all, coercive enforcement mechanisms cannot be legally applied unless they are
legally authorized. Thus, Dworkins view of laws conceptual function presupposes that it
is a conceptually necessary feature of a legal system that coercive enforcement mechanisms
be (legally) authorized for some violations of law.

On any plausible methodology for conceptual jurisprudence, that is a reasonable

position to take. After all, we know of no existing legal system, past or present, that lacks
authorized coercive enforcement mechanisms for some violations of law. Whether one
adopts a purely descriptive or normative conceptual methodology, an analysis of our
concept of law will have to be grounded in some empirical observations of existing legal
systems that appear to be paradigmatic instances of our legal practices. The content of our
concepts is constructed by our practices, whether these are purely linguistic or not.
Accordingly, the content of our concepts is determined by intersubjective practices, which
entails that that content is determined by considerations that depend on human minds. It is
thus a mistake to think that the content of our concepts is objective in the sense that the

34
Ronald M. Dworkin, Laws Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 93, 109, 127.
35
Ibid., 93.
36
Similarly, Larry Alexander believes that the conceptual function of law is a moral one; as he puts it, the role
of law is to make moral requirements more determinate. Larry Alexander, All or Nothing at All? in Andrei
Marmor (ed.), Law and Interpretation: Essays in Legal Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 357-404,
360.

18
content is wholly fixed or determined by mind-independent considerations and hence those
that have nothing to with what human beings believe, desire, or do.

Indeed, the idea that we could have reliable intuitive access to the content of
concepts that are wholly objective is even less plausible than the idea that we could have
reliable intuitive access to objective laws of morality; intuitionism as a conceptual
epistemology is at least as implausible as intuitionism as a moral epistemology. Whether
or not one holds the view that there is, or should be, a normative element to conceptual
methodology, no such methodology could be plausible without being grounded in
observations and explications of the relevant intersubjective practices. In the case of law,
no such methodology could be plausible without being grounded in observations of what
we take to be paradigmatic features of law as those features are expressed in our legal (and
corresponding linguistic) practices which, again, Raz correctly believes wholly construct
the content of our legal concepts.

If this is correct, then Dworkins view of the conceptual function of law is

vulnerable to objection. The problem arises because Dworkins view presupposes that the
officials who make, adjudicate, and enforce law believe it to be morally legitimate and act
so as to ensure the laws legitimacy; otherwise, the conceptual purpose of law could not be
to legitimate the use of coercion. Although it is surely true that, as an empirical matter,
officials and subjects tend to view their legal systems as legitimate, this need not be so. As
Hart points out, it would be implausible to make it a conceptually necessary feature of law
either that officials accept the rule of recognition for moral reasons or that citizens view the
legal system as legitimate. If that were true, then a legal system that resembled that of the
U.S. in every respect compatible with officials accepting the rule of recognition for
personal reasons and citizens merely acquiescing to the legal system would be conceptually
disqualified as counting as a legal system. It would not be unreasonable to view that
result as a reductio of any view that logically implies it.

But, more importantly, Dworkins analysis does not really answer the question that
must be answered in order to reliably identify the conceptual function of a legal system.
That question for Dworkins account would be why do we believe we need an institutional
normative system that includes authorized coercive enforcement mechanisms that would
need to be morally justified to begin with? Why not just make do with a system that
resembles the institution that regulates the behavior of angels in a Razian society of angels?

The answer to that question has to do with the conspicuous difficulties of bringing
beings like us to live peacefully in a society so that we can reap the benefits of cooperative
social living. Unlike the angels who, despite being self-interested, are dispositively
motivated to obey law (a motivation that is difficult to reconcile with the assumption that
they are self-interested), human beings are not dispositively motivated to do so. It is not just
the Holmesian bad man that causes the problem, here, although the existence of such
persons are probably inevitable until all root causes of social conflict can be eliminated. It is
that good people are frequently motivated to disobey laws that they believe are unjust or
unfair either for moral reasons or for prudential reasons. The supposition that Razs self-
interested angels are not willing to disobey either wicked laws for moral reasons or good

19
laws for prudential reasons calls into question whether the needs of such theoretically alien
beings can tell us anything of significance about the concept of a legal system that is, on his
view, constructed by our legal practices.37

The reason that beings like us need legal systems to keep the peace in a world like
ours, as suggested in the last section, is that beings like us are likely to resolve conflicts
of self-interest by recourse to violent self-help methods that breach the very peace
necessary to achieve the benefits of social living that provide the very motivation for
living together in the first place. It is probably true and this is an empirical hypothesis
that every person gets angry when he or she feels wronged. It is probably also true that
most people tend to think that moral complaints against them are false, and they respond
with anger when they are charged with a moral offense. The likely result of such
conflicts is mutual anger, and anger tends to exacerbate social conflicts, rather than
resolve them.

This is not to say that every conflict that leads to anger is likely to lead to
violence. But once the parties to a conflict get angry, that conflict gets worse, as an
empirical matter, and frequently leads to acts on the part of both parties that they regret
if not apologize for.38 It is surely true that the vast majority of angry conflicts remains
non-violent and simply leads to hurt feelings that require work on the part of both parties
to repair for the relationship to continue although such conflicts not infrequently result
in the destruction of the relationship.

But there can be no question that beings like us easily find cause for acts that can
breach the peace in various ways. Here are four of many germane statistics, compiled by
the Peace Alliance, about our propensity for violence that creates the need for law to keep
the peace by sometimes utilizing authorized coercive enforcement mechanisms:

[1] Violence causes more than 1.6 million deaths worldwide every year.
Violence is one of the leading causes of death in all parts of the world for
persons ages 15 to 44. [Krug EG et al., eds. World report on violence and
health. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2002. Via CDC].

[2] 35 percent of women worldwide more than one in three said

they had experienced violence in their lifetime, whether physical, sexual,
or both. One in 10 girls under the age of 18 was forced to have sex. [UN
Report on violence against women worldwide, 2015].

[3] The world spends just $1 on conflict prevention for every $1,885 it
spends on military budgets. Here in the U.S., less than 2% of income tax
goes to civilian foreign affairs agencies; meanwhile, 39% goes to the
military. And though taxpayers provide almost $1 billion per year for
military academies, they pay only about $40 million for the United States
Institute of Peacethe only U.S. agency dedicated to conflict prevention

37
For much more on the society-of-angels thought experiment, see ___.
38
Why it is so difficult for people to utter the words Im sorry is a mystery to me.

20
 and peacebuilding. [Friends Committee on National Legislation
report, Prevention is 60:1 Cost Effective, 2011].

[4] The 20th century was one of the most violent periods in human history.
An estimated 191 million people lost their lives directly or indirectly as a
result of conflict, and well over half of them were civilians. [World Health
Organization: visit: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention
(2002)].39

And all this in a world already carved up into separate legal systems that have authorized
coercive mechanisms in a variety of forms, including armies and police agencies.
Although it is true that many of these legal systems are themselves wickedly violent, it is
reasonable to surmise that these statistics would be so much worse without legal systems
providing for mechanisms of conflict resolutions backed by authorized coercive
enforcement mechanisms.

As normative political philosophers have realized, the problem of violent conflict

among self-interest beings like us is the problem that nation-states (or legal systems) with
authorized coercive enforcement mechanisms are intended to solve. There is no reason to
think that much about whether the institutional normative system in Razs society of
angels is morally legitimate because we are not like beings like that. Our world is very
different, and it is the practices of our legal systems that pose the moral problem of
justification as well as determine the content of our legal concepts.

In this connection, it should be noted that the problem of moral legitimacy either
does not arise in a system without coercion or is morally trivially. Without authorized
coercive enforcement mechanisms, law merely issues commands or directives that are, so
to speak, hollow. It might be rude for you to (try to) direct (or command) me to do p.
But, without a threat of violence, there is, as far as I can see, no moral problem of any
import that requires a solution. As far as I can see, regardless of the content of p, merely
commanding or directing me to do p poses a problem of little moral interest or
significance. Once the command is backed by coercion, however, the scope and
significance of the problem changes dramatically.

It is when those directives are backed by authorized coercive enforcement

mechanisms that the content of those directives make some moral difference with respect
to what is legitimately demanded. It is clearly worse for you to point a gun at me and
say, give me your money, than it is to point a gun at me and say, wipe your nose
although both are clearly problematic from a moral point of view. The problem of the
limits of what law can justifiably dictate by way of behavior becomes a problem of
content when that content is backed by authorized coercive enforcement mechanisms.
Indeed, that is what all non-skeptical theories of political legitimacy do i.e. identify the
limits of what legal content may justifiably be backed by authorized coercive
enforcement mechanisms.

39
Statistics on Violence and Peace, The Peace Alliance; available at http://peacealliance.org/tools-
education/statistics-on-violence/.

21
 The problems of legality and legitimacy are, of course, distinct problems. But it
is hard to justify the idea that the concept of law that gives rise to the normative problems
of political philosophy should be so far removed from the obvious facts about us and our
world that create the problem that legal systems are needed to solve. While the
problematizing case of international law once called into doubt whether it is a
conceptually necessary feature of law that legal systems authorize coercive enforcement
mechanisms for some violations of law, it is hard to see how anything in the legal
practices that construct our concept of law would suggest that there are legal systems in
the society of angels.

The conceptual explication of law that most coheres with (1) the facts of the
human reality that gives rise to the need for law; (2) the concerns of officials, law
students, and citizens; and (3) the problem of moral legitimacy to which legality gives
rise is one that views the conceptual function of a legal system as keeping the peace by
enacting norms that are, at least in part, backed by authorized coercive enforcement
mechanisms. Law, as we conceive and practice it, is a distinctively human enterprise that
responds to problems that arise only in connection with beings like us who live in
circumstances, like we do, of material scarcity. And that distinctively human enterprise,
as a matter of conceptual necessity, requires the authorization of coercive enforcement
mechanisms to achieve its purpose of keeping the peace.

22