The Ontology of Legal Science: Hans Kelsen’s Proposal of the ‘Pure Theory of Law’

Abstract

Through the pure legal theory, within the thesis of normativity (without the thesis of morality) and the thesis of separation (without the thesis of reductive), Hans Kelsen proposes an object of legal science that is different from the one proposed by the philosophy schools of natural law and empirical-positivistic law. The idea transforms the legal science into a unique and distinctive science. Based on the philosophical research method, a legal norm, according to Hans Kelsen, must have two characters: the meaning of actions that want legal norm; and the relative moral norms with normative characteristics.