 However, Hart’s and Alexander’s formulations are at best misleading as characterizations of legal  moralism;[1]  and Feinberg’s is incomplete by the measure of his own formulations of rival positions. What both leave out is the important point that immorality or wrongdoing is generally taken by legal moralists to be a prima facie or pro tanto ground for the imposition of legal coercion, subject to potential defeat by other  factors.[2]  That certain conduct is by common standards immoral gives the society, in Devlin’s view, “prima facie right to legislate” (Devlin 1965: 11). The immorality is certainly a valid reason for criminalization, but such a reason will fail to be conclusive if unable to override a series of potential defeating factors that Devlin outlines. Accordingly, the