I feel confident that "Legality" is one of the very best boks in general jurisprudence in many, many years...I suspect that "Legality" will become a standard work for students of law and philosophy...Everyone who engages in the academic study of law should read "Legality"--it is that important.--Lawrence B. Solum"Legal Theory blog" (12/11/2010) Shapiro has produced a work of enduring significance.--Frederick Schauer"Yale Law Journal" (12/01/2010) This book is throughout a very fine contribution to jurisprudence--imaginative, incisive, fair to interlocutors, and written with elegance and wit...It is essential reading for philosophers of law.--Mark C. Murphy"Law and Philosophy" (05/01/2011) Rich and vibrant with jurisprudential ambition...There are lots of riches in Scott Shapiro's book...I have not been able to convey how well this book is written or how much light the author is able to shed along the way on various issues in the philosophy of law...It shows that the idea of planning can indeed cast light on the problems of jurisprudence without necessarily blinding us to other analogies and other sources of insight.--Jeremy Waldron"Michigan Law Review" (04/01/2011) This book is...imaginative, incisive, fair to interlocutors, and written with elegance and wit...It is essential reading for philosophers of law.--Mark C. Murphy"Law and Philosophy" (05/01/2011) ["Legality"] is a sympathetic, accessible, and highly readable exposition of the theories that have preceded it. It is now one of the best single-authored introductions to the subject. It is also a significant contribution. Moreover, it is an apologia for the subject itself, and for the method of conceptual analysis as a way of uncovering the nature and grounds of law...Both as a defense and example of analytic jurisprudence...this book is unrivalled.--William A. Edmundson"Jurisprudence" (06/01/2011) Scott Shapiro's "Legality" is a rich and ambitious discussion of law's fundamental nature. Almost every page is provocative, touching upon many of the most interesting, complicated and controversial areas within this area of inquiry.--Stefan Sciaraffa"Oxford Journal of Legal Studies" (09/01/2011) It cannot be doubted that Shapiro's book, which clarifies and advances analytical jurisprudence, is bound to be a classic text.--Ekow Yankah"Jotwell" (09/12/2011) "Legality" makes a contribution to the field that no student of jurisprudence can ignore.--Judith Baer"Political Science Quarterly" (12/01/2011)

Legality is a profound work in analytical jurisprudence, the branch of legal philosophy which deals with metaphysical questions about the law. In the twentieth century, there have been two major approaches to the nature of law. The first and most prominent is legal positivism, which draws a sharp distinction between law as it is and law as it might be or ought to be. The second are theories that view law as embedded in a moral framework. Scott Shapiro is a positivist, but one who tries to bridge the differences between the two approaches. In Legality, he shows how law can be thought of as a set of plans to achieve complex human goals. His new "planning" theory of law is a way to solve the "possibility problem", which is the problem of how law can be authoritative without referring to higher laws.