Abstract:
This article argues for the revision of two devices used in contemporary jurisprudence to explain the normativity of law. Both the idea that law claims authority and the notion that law either has or is represented by agents with an internal point of view rely upon descriptive or conceptual accounts of legal officials. In contrast, this article advocates a focus on what it is about officials that makes their conduct normatively significant, and argues that the role of official is created by normative social practices which generate and then carry standing as a special kind of agency. That idea of officials is then used to argue for an account of law's normativity in which the official role entails occupation of an 'official point of view', from which an 'official claim to authority' holds law out as authoritative for subjects whilst committing its officials to the pursuit of its legitimacy.
