Persistent questions
Perplexities of legal theory
Three recurrent issues
Definition
Laws, commands, and orders
Varieties of imperatives
Law as coercive orders
The variety of laws
The content of the laws
The range of application
Modes of origin
Sovereign and subject
The habit of obedience and the continuity of law
The persistence of law
Legal limitations on legislative power
The sovereign behind the legislature
Law as the union of primary and secondary rules
A fresh start
The idea of obligation
The elements of law
The foundations of a legal system
Rule of recognition and legal validity
New questions
The pathology of a legal system
Formalism and rule-scepticism
The open texture of law
Varieties of rule-scepticism
Finality and infallibility in judicial decision
Uncertainty in the rule of recognition
Justice and morality
Principles of justice
Moral and legal obligation
Moral ideals and social criticism
Laws and morals
Natural law and legal positivism
The minimum content of natural law
Legal validity and moral value
International law
Sources of doubt
Obligations and sanctions
Obligation and sovereignty of states
International law and morality
Analogies of form and content.