John Austin (legal philosopher)

John Austin ( born March 3, 1790, Creeting Mill, Suffolk, England; † December 1, 1859, Weybridge, Surrey ) was an English jurist and legal philosopher.

Austin won with his publication The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832 ) after his death pioneering influence on the legal discussion by established quite a positivist point of view. Austin defended the separation between law and morality positives.

The basic features of Austin's theory: There are two types of codes of conduct, namely imposed by God that are based on opinion and imposed by people who rely on set. The rules imposed by God belong to the natural law, because they were set in contrast to the limitations imposed by man-made rules, without a political authority. Hence the positive morality. Man and a political authority of positive law is set.

A legal rule consists of a general command and the threat of a sanction under the condition that the commander has the power to impose the penalty. This creates an obligation on the command addressees. Law itself is the sum of the commands. From the highest social authority, assume the sovereign and where the bulk of society obeys habitually

John Austin was married to the writer and translator Sarah Austin, which published his lectures after his death.