  Positivists, in contrast, have argued that what is law is determined only by the institutional facts internal to a legal system, facts that may or may not meet moral standards. Early positivists, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Austin, argued that even the legitimacy of law did not depend on moral criteria; law must be obeyed, however much it falls short of moral ideals. More recent exponents, such as H.L.A. Hart and Joseph Raz, have argued that legal positivism is committed only to the idea that because what is law is a factual question, law’s legitimacy can be determined by moral criteria outside the law that might recommend disobedience. All positivists, however, are agreed that, although law may meet moral criteria, what the law is and what it ought to be should be kept distinct.