 More generally, it seems more distorting than enlightening to reduce all legal rules to one type. For example, rules that empower people to make wills and contracts perhaps can be re-characterized as part of a long chain of reasoning for eventually imposing a sanction (Austin spoke in this context of the sanction of “nullity” (Austin 1879: 522, 523, 923)) on those who fail to comply with the relevant provisions. However, such a re-characterization misses the basic purpose of those sorts of laws—they are arguably about granting power and autonomy, not punishing wrongdoing.