I Problemi fondamentali presi sul serio. Ancora su diritto, morale e scienza giuridica in Hans Kelsen

In Kelsen’s Hauptprobleme der Staatsrechtslehre, the autonomy of legal science is derived from the heteronomy of law. In turn, this entails the rejection of imperativism and the analogical construction of the legal duties of both subjects and organs. However, Kelsen’s own well-known depiction of legal duty itself implies a different concept of duty. If one is unwilling to accept that this duty paradoxically consists of a power, it must be acknowledged that it can only be understood as the meaning of a command, and that, in the pure theory of law, the heteronomous obligation of the subject implies the autonomous duty of the organ.