Bibliogr. s. 16-19. Streszcz. ang. s. 21

The fundamental thesis of legal positivism is the social thesis, which claims that law is a matter of social facts. This thesis entails the separation thesis, which, in its weak version, claims that determining what the law is does not necessarily or conceptually depend on morality. The determination of legal content requires an interpretation of law. According to the prevailing view, interpretation necessarily involves moral evaluation. If this is true, then the separation thesis appears to be false. Legal positivists have four possible defences of the separation thesis. First, they may claim that positivism is solely a theory of legal validity. Second, they may claim that interpretation is rather an exception to the ordinary understanding of a legal text. Therefore, in most cases the determination of legal content does not require moral evaluation. Third, they may claim that canons of interpretation are parts of the law and constitute ‘the law of interpretation’ on the basis of which legal content is determined, without the need of moral considerations. Fourth, they may claim that the determination of the proper methodology of interpretation is a matter of social facts, and in particular the matter of the actual distribution of trust. Arguments for and against each of those accounts are discussed. The analysis demonstrates that none of those solutions is fully satisfactory, but the most promising is the first claim.