HART, HERBERT LIONEL ADOLPHUS

HART, HERBERT LIONEL ADOLPHUS (1907–1992), British philosopher of law, generally known as H.L.A. Hart. Born at Harrogate and educated at Cheltenham, Bradford Grammar School, and New College, Oxford, in 1932 Hart became a barrister. From 1932 to 1940 he practiced at the Chancery Bar, and from 1939 to 1945 served in the British War Office. He returned to Oxford in 1945, becoming a fellow of University College, and professor of jurisprudence in 1952–68. His major writings include Causation in the Law (with A.M. Honoré, 1959), The Concept of Law (1961), Punishment and the Elimination of Responsibility (1962), Law, Liberty and Morality (1963), and The Morality of the Criminal Law (1964). Each of these works is characterized by the application of the techniques of contemporary philosophy to areas of serious legal and moral contention. In general, Hart's work stands in opposition to philosophical determinism, the notion that nobody can act differently from the way he does, and therefore cannot be held responsible for what he does. To accept this point of view would risk blurring the general recognition that a man's fate should depend upon his choice, and with it the whole way of conceiving human relationships. Not only in the law or in morally crucial situations, but also in our everyday transactions, we view one another as responsible and not "merely as alterable, predictable, curable, or manipulable things." From 1973 to 1978 he was principal of Brasenose College, Oxford. Hart visited Israel in 1964, giving the Lionel Cohen lectures in Jerusalem. He is regarded as one of the foremost exponents of the theory of "legal positivism." -ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: ODNB online; J. Hart, Ask Me No More (1998); N. Lacey, A Life of H.L.A. Hart (2004). (Avrum Stroll/ Williiam D. Rubinstein (2nd ed.)