ABSTRACT
In his contribution, Ezequiel Monti critically engages with a general objection that H.L.A. Hart raised against Joseph Raz’s thesis legal obligations are moral obligations. The objection claims that Raz’s thesis has unacceptable factual implications. Monti argues that, once we distinguish between de dicto and de re ascriptions of belief, we are in the position to appreciate that no implausible consequence needs to be associated with the claim that legal obligations are moral obligations. On this basis, he concludes that there is no general sound argument establishing that legal obligations cannot be a species of moral obligations. This means that the critics of the thesis that legal obligations are a species of moral obligations (and Monti features among them) need to challenge each and every different variant of such a thesis in order to make their case.
