Protagorean Positivism

Abstract This article argues Plato depicts Protagoras in the eponymous dialogue as the first legal positivist in the Western philosophical tradition. A careful reading of his Great Speech shows that Protagoras believes legal normativity is independent of ethics: law acquires its normative status by the connection of commands to reliable threats of sanction for non-conformance. Justification for obedience to the law from a third-person perspective derives from its role in enabling forms of social co-ordination that ensure the survival and well-being of citizens. However, Protagoras also has an account of how citizens are formed to regard laws from the internal point of view, with laws deriving their rational authority from the incorporation of conformance to the law into citizens’ conception of the good life.