Arjun Bahl, OP Jindal Global University
INTRODUCTION:
Jeremy Bentham once said, “the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.” Thomas Hobbes was one of the first jurists to have considered the inclusion of a moral purpose while defining the law. While Hobbes advocated the notion of absolute power, he was against the idea of an arbitrary exercise of this power. Unlike future jurists, the idea of demonstrating law as a scientific fact did not appeal to Hobbes, and according to him, it was the moral duty of the subjects to obey the law being made. Hobbes believed that “the greater good demanded that people equate the law to the command of the sovereign.”
The concept of law and morality has been deliberated upon by several jurists, primarily Jeremy Bentham and John Austin, and the work of these jurists was instrumental to the development of the school of legal positivism. Several judges in various countries across the world have based their decisions on the school of legal positivism.
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