Sovereignty and Legally Limited Government
Sovereignty and Legally Limited Government
Bentham's account of legislative power agrees with that of earlier political theorists, such as Hobbes and Locke, but he differed from them with regard to the nature of the artefact and in so doing brought into political and legal theory a new and uncompromisingly positivist strain of thought. It is of course true that Hobbes's theory of law as the command of a Sovereign resembled Bentham's in many respects, but it differed from his in holding that the command of the Sovereign only constituted law because it was given to subjects already under a prior obligation arising from their contract with each other to obey him.
Keywords: legislative power, sovereignty, Locke, legal theory, contract, positive law
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
