In What Sense Is Law a Moral Practice?

<span>Scott Hershovitz’s book <i>Law Is a Moral Practice</i> argues that law is, well, a moral practice—though what that means is less than clear. This Review takes up the book’s titular claim and considers the senses in which that claim is true and those in which it is false or at least controversial. To that end, the Review first differentiates several ideas that Hershovitz appears to lump together under the slogan “law is a moral practice.” One of those ideas is the “one-system view” associated with Ronald Dworkin’s late work, on which law is a branch of morality, such that legal norms are a subset of moral norms. The Review then reconstructs Hershovitz’s argument for the one-system view and critically examines the argument’s premises, ultimately concluding that the argument is unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the argument is worth considering for, among other reasons, the light it sheds on general jurisprudence’s methodology.</span>