The concepts of legal right and obligation, despite daily reliance, resist clear definition.

Evidence

Lawyers lean heavily on the connected concepts of legal right and legal obligation. We say that someone has a legal right or duty, and we take that statement as a sound basis for making claims and demands, and for criticizing the acts of public officials. But our understanding of these concepts is remarkably fragile, and we fall into trouble when we try to say what legal rights and obligations are. — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 0

Categorization

• XREF: Frames the jurisprudential problem that Dworkin’s interpretive theory of law will answer; connects to H.L.A. Hart’s The Concept of Law and the natural-law/positivism debate. — connects to: Rights and obligations can bind genuinely without being absolute. — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 139; Legal coercion lacks a satisfactory account even in clear cases — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 10; Conceptual puzzles about ‘the law’ and ‘legal obligation’ become acute when a court is confronted with a problem like this. (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Legal coercion lacks a satisfactory account even in clear cases #expands (0.85) — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 10
• Conceptual puzzles about ‘the law’ and ‘legal obligation’ become acute when a court is confronted with a problem like this. #expands (0.75)
• Day in and day out we send people to jail, or take money away from them, or make them do things they do not want to do, under coercion of force, and we justify all of this by speaking of such… #expands (0.70)