According to contemporary nonpositivist theories, legal obligations are a subset of our genuine moral obligations. Debates within nonpositivism then turn on how we delimit the legal “domain” of morality. Recently, nonpositivist theories have come under criticism on two grounds. First, that they are underinclusive, because they cannot explain why paradigmatically “legal” obligations are such. Second, that they are overinclusive, because they count as “legal” certain moral obligations that are plainly nonlegal. This paper undertakes both a ground-clearing exercise for and a defense of nonpositivism. It argues, in particular, that Dworkin's claims about the legal domain of morality in his later work are often mischaracterized by critics, because these critics fail to read these claims in light of his earlier theory of “Law as Integrity.” A nonpositivist theory that unifies Dworkin's earlier and later work, I argue, deals with the criticisms leveled at nonpositivist theories better than other nonpositivist competitors.

根据当代非实证主义理论，法律义务是我们真正的道德义务的一部分。非实证主义内部的争论随后转向我们如何界定道德的法律“领域”。最近，非实证主义理论因两个原因受到批评。首先，它们的包容性不足，因为它们无法解释为什么范式上的“法律”义务如此。其次，它们过于包容，因为它们将某些显然不合法的道德义务视为“合法”。本文既为非实证主义进行了清理工作，也为非实证主义辩护。它特别指出，德沃金在其后期作品中关于道德的法律领域的主张经常被批评家错误地描述，因为这些批评家未能根据他早期的“法律作为完整性”理论来解读这些主张。