The Internal Point of View as a Rational Choice?

H. L. A. Hart's seminal book The Concept of Law entails arguments which are also of substantial importance for social theory: his claim that the existence of social and legal norms presupposes the dissemination of an internal point of view among the members of a social and legal community presents a serious challenge for any explanation of social order. Hartmut Kliemt emphasizes this aspect of Hart's work time and again in his own writings - and surely with very good reasons. In my paper I will try to reconstruct Hart's theory in detail. I will argue that we have to clarify the different dimensions of the concept of an internal point of view to be able to assess its consequences for a theory of social and legal order - especially for a rational choice approach which at first sight seems to be incompatible with the concept of an internal point of view.