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Question

The most fundamental philosophical assumption of legal positivism is :

The correct answer is

Law as it is & Law ought to be

Legal positivism, as a school of jurisprudence, insists on a strict separation between what the law is and what the law ought to be. Its most fundamental philosophical assumption, championed by John Austin, Jeremy Bentham, H.L.A. Hart and Hans Kelsen, is that the validity of a legal rule depends on its source (a sovereign command or a rule of recognition) and not on its moral merit. Positivists concede that unjust laws may be criticised on moral grounds, but such moral defects do not by themselves rob a rule of its legal character. This descriptive, source-based methodology sharply distinguishes positivism from natural law theories, which treat morality as intrinsic to legality. 

Hence the essence of legal positivism is the analytical separation between the 'law as it is' and the 'law as it ought to be' which is the correct option

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