Gustav Radbruch’s Concept of Law

Abstract

In the twentieth century, two legal philosophers in the German-speaking countries excelled over all the others and their philosophies remain topics of lively debate in the global discussion today: Hans Kelsen and Gustav Radbruch. Kelsen was a positivist. The classification of Radbruch is contested. According to the discontinuity thesis, Radbruch was a positivist before 1933 and became a non-positivist after 1945. According to the continuity thesis, Radbruch always was a non-positivist. I defend the continuity thesis in this chapter. The basis of the argument presented here is the distinction between super-inclusive and inclusive non-positivism.