As to the basis of law itself, there are two major schools of philosophical thought. The first, Natural Law, hold that law is fundamentally independent of social conventions and practices of humans. Some supporters of natural law believe that law has a divine origin. But supporters of natural law also agree that much law grows out of human social practices and customs. Legal Positivism , the second school, maintains that human social conventions and practices create all law.
Law is put in place by whoever has enough power to lay sown the law and then to enforce it.
Legal positivists often define a legal system as the system that has a monopoly on force in a society. See Exercise 13-6 of textbook C. Appeals to Precedent Arguments by analogy are called appeals to precedent. Although stare decisis promotes fairness and efficiency in the application of law, and promotes security and the citizens confidence in the legal system, it can be changed, that is precedents are not absolutely binding as we frequently see in decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Nevertheless, a strong version of stare decisis allows few breaks with precedent. D. Hierarchy of Authorities As we saw earlier in the course, appeals to legitimate authority are perfectly acceptable.