The Foundations and Effects of Self-Sufficiency in the School of Legal Positivism

The school of legal positivism is considered as one of the most prominent and influential legal schools in the sector of law. The challenge mostly continued to be faced by legal researchers regarding the accurate knowledge of that, is most of the theorists of positive law school have refrained from explaining and developing the philosophical and epistemological foundations of legal positivism as completely independent and self-sufficient science; therefore self-sufficiency can be regarded as one of the main issue of school of legal positivism. The lack of clarity in philosophical foundations and reliance on the study of law, due to what in social reality is and should be, makes it difficult to analyze the detailed and deep philosophical criticism of positivism. In this regard, the question of the current research is what the implicit and extra-legal presuppositions of self-sufficiency of the legal positivism school are emerged from, and what the manifestations and results of such self-sufficiency in this school are. The research method is descriptive-analytical and the outcomes indicate that the school of legal positivism by an emphasis on its self-sufficiency feature, despite the specification of its theorists to specific philosophical foundations, has a tight relationship with the philosophical assumptions of the Enlightenment era and self-sufficiency. However, this school is manifested as self-sufficiency in setting the law and its interpretation, equality of rights with the law, delivery of justice to legal justice, social order as the goal of rights and etc. Also, all the manifestations and fruits of legal positivism can be vividly seen in relation to the self-sufficient approach of the aforementioned school and its alienation from extra-legal sources such as religion, moral law and philosophical propositions; In such a way, the origin of the school of legal positivism can be seen in this characteristic of self-sufficiency.