Joseph Raz

"The Morality of Freedom," published in 1986 by Oxford University Press, is widely regarded as Raz's most important work. In it, he develops a perfectionist liberal theory and introduces his influential "service conception of authority." The book won the W.J.M. Mackenzie Book Prize from the Political Studies Association.

Raz was a leading defender of legal positivism, specifically the "exclusive" or "hard" form, which holds that the existence and content of law depend on social facts rather than moral merit. His "service conception of authority" argues that legitimate authority mediates between subjects and the reasons that apply to them. This view places him in dialogue and debate with H.L.A. Hart and Ronald Dworkin.

Raz held a chair at the University of Oxford, where he was a Fellow of Balliol College for many years. He later also taught at Columbia Law School in New York, maintaining affiliations at both institutions. Born in 1939 in British Mandate Palestine, he studied law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before completing his doctorate at Oxford under H.L.A. Hart.

Yes, "The Authority of Law," published in 1979 by Oxford University Press, is another of Raz's major works in legal theory. The book collects his essays on the nature of law, legal systems, and the relationship between law and morality. It remains a standard text in jurisprudence courses and one of the most cited works in contemporary legal philosophy.