Each and every type of "ought", be it religious, moral or legal, must presuppose a certain point of view, a point of view which is constituted by the basic norm of the relevant normative system.
Similarly, the normativity of law, presupposed by its basic norm, is optional: "An anarchist, for instance, who denied the validity of the hypothetical basic norm of positive law….
But in both cases, as, in fact, with any other normative system, the presupposition of the basic norm is logically required only of those who regard the relevant norms as reasons for their actions.
God's commands, however, would only have normative validity for those who presuppose the basic norm of their respective religion, namely, that one ought to obey God's commands.
So it turns out that normativity (contra Kant) always consists of conditional imperatives: if, and only if, one endorses a certain normative point of view, determined by its basic norm, then the norms that follow from it are reason giving, so to speak.
By deliberately avoiding any explanation of what it is that might ground an agent's choice of endorsing the legal point of view, or any given basic norm, Kelsen left the most pressing questions about the normativity of law unanswered.
Let us now see how Kelsen thought that the basic norm helps to explain the sense in which law is a normative domain and what this normativity consists in.
Joseph Raz has called these kinds of statements "detached normative statements"; the anarchist argues as if she endorses the basic norm, without actually endorsing it.
The normative content of this presupposition is what Kelsen has called the basic norm.
The policy reflects a basic norm within the Justice Department.
