The province of jurisprudence determined

Abstract

Positive law consists of commands issued by a determinate sovereign to members of an independent political society. These commands are defined by a tripartite structure: a signified wish, an accompanying sanction for non-compliance, and a resulting legal duty. Jurisprudence is strictly the study of these positive laws as they exist, distinguished from “positive morality”—which encompasses rules such as international law and social etiquette—and from divine law. The validity of a legal rule is determined solely by its source in sovereign authority rather than its alignment with moral or ethical standards; consequently, a law remains legally binding regardless of its perceived merit or demerit. Sovereignty is identified by the habitual obedience of the bulk of a population to a human superior who is not themselves in a state of habitual subjection to another determinate superior. While the principle of general utility serves as an index to unrevealed divine laws and provides a standard for the science of legislation, it remains conceptually separate from the analytical determination of legal existence. This framework establishes a rigorous boundary for legal science, excluding metaphorical applications of “law” found in the natural sciences and isolating the analytical components of a legal system from subjective evaluation. – AI-generated abstract.