Responses to Waluchow on Raz

Since its publication in 1994, Wilfrid J. Waluchow’s first book, “Inclusive Legal Positivism” (ILP), has been regarded as the best defence of that jurisprudential account. This chapter engages with Waluchow’s arguments against Joseph Raz, particularly the criticism of his conception of authority and its consequences for the debate between exclusive and inclusive legal positivism. The aim of the chapter is to present: (1) a short summary of Raz’s view on authority and his defence of exclusive legal positivism; (2) a response to Waluchow’s criticism of Raz’s view of the necessarily peremptory nature of authority in general, pointing out that, despite Waluchow being right about that, it might be the case that the authority law claims is, in fact, of the peremptory type; (3) a response to Waluchow’s criticism of Raz’s view of the necessarily peremptory nature of law’s authority in particular, where Waluchow appeals to the role exceptions play in the enforcement of legal norms; (4) a response to Waluchow’s criticism to Raz’s analogy between law and arbitration, where Waluchow reminds the role coordination and consensus play both in arbitration and in law; and, finally, (5) an explanation of the true nature of the disagreement between exclusive and inclusive legal positivists, that I view as residing in their conceptions of “description,” and why such disagreement is unlikely to be overcome.