The Questionable Presupposition Underlying Hartian Accounts of Legal Facts

Abstract Per the standard reading of his view, Hart held that the legally valid norms of any legal system are those identified as such by the criteria of validity effectively accepted in common by the system's officials (i.e. the system's rule of recognition). Here, I focus on the presupposition underlying this Hartian account of legal facts – namely, that the officials of any legal system share a perspective that fixes the identity of their …