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The Kelsenian project of a legal science of positive law remains, as demonstrated by the majority of contributions to this volume, a source of continued relevance for contemporary legal theory. In the subsequent development of legal theories of positive law, the Kelsenian project has, however, effectively ceased to be accorded a significant degree of pertinence. The loss of pertinence is marked by the marginalization of the methodological questions and framework of the Kelsenian project and the shift in orientation to other theoretical forms of conceptualization of positive law. The effective jettisoning of the Kelsenian project, predicated upon a transformation in the understanding of the purpose of a theory of positive law, has itself resulted in a significant differentiation and disagreement concerning the foundation for, and parameters of, a legal theory of positive law. This differentiation and disagreement has centred, in contemporary Anglo-American work in particular, upon the question of the degree to which the legal theory of positive law excludes or includes morality (see, for example, Gardner 2001; Kramer 2003; Himma 2001, 2002, 2005; Marmor 2001, 2002, 2007; Raz 1975, 1979, 2011; Shaprio 2009; Waluchow 1994) and upon the wider question of the theoretical or methodological basis for the elaboration of a legal theory of positive law (see, for example, Coleman 2001; Leiter 2007; Shapiro 2013).

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-51817-6_16

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