实证主义和法律与道德的分离(上)

在本文中，我将讨论一种观点并试图为它辩护。霍姆斯法官等曾持有此种观点，他们也因此遭到了很多的批评。首先，我将说明，为什么对于英国人来说，霍姆斯仍将是法理学方面的一个伟大人物，无论他在美国的名声怎样变动沉浮。之所以如此，是因为他拥有两种神奇的能力：一是想象力，这是英国法律思维中经常缺乏的；二是清晰性，这是英国法律思维中通常具备的。通过阅读霍姆斯，英国的法律人认识到：他们以前认为是固定不变的事情其实总是处于运动变化之中。在这一过程中，霍姆斯就像一位向导，他的话可能不会令你信服，有时甚至令你讨厌，但从…     

实证主义和法律与道德的分离(下)

四法律与道德的区分遭受的第三个批评与前述二者截然不同。它不是以细致推理为基础对功利主义之区分作知识上的反对 ,相反 ,它是人们基于刻骨铭心的惨痛经历而产生的情感诉求。它由地狱生还的人们 (如乌利西斯或但丁 )的控诉构成 ,他们为人类带来了警告。这里 ,地狱不在黄泉之下 ,不在九霄之外 ,它在我们日夜生活于斯的可爱的土地之上。它是人类用自己的双手制造的 ,目的是 :将自己的同类投入地狱 !这种诉求源自德国思想家 ,他们经历了残酷的纳粹体制 ,并且对该法律体制下的罪恶行径进行了深刻的反省。拉德布鲁赫是其中之一。在纳粹独裁统治…     

分离命题与法律实证主义

法律与道德的分离命题是法律实证主义的一项重要主张,它包含了弱的和强的两种分离命题。哈特主张的是弱分离命题,它主张在法律的合法性标准的外在方面法律与价值的必然分离。弱分离命题需要社会事实命题的支持,它没有资格作为法律实证主义的基础命题。而在合法性标准的内在方面,法律与道德存在必然联系。内在必要联系命题可以为法律的规范性提供合理说明,并为消除自然法与法律实证主义的对立和融合两者提供了新的理论前景。     

自然法,还是法律实证主义

“恶法非法”还是“恶法亦法”?自然法理论与法律实证主义所争议的这一核心问题既是学术的,又更在学术之外。在学术的象牙塔里,争论还会继续下去,如果仅此而已,社会可以对它们漠然处之。问题在于,当它们中的一个在事实上成为法律实践的指导理论时,处于法律生活中的人们就无法不对其投以关注。如何克服法律之恶,应当是现代法律制度建设最重要的问题之一。一个能够保证在现实的立法中,以最大可能追求善,而一旦出现恶法时,又以最大的可能祛除恶,对法律进行修复的制度,必须是我们时刻追求的。     

Legal Positivism and Legal Disagreements

This paper deals with the possibility of faultless disagreement in law. It does this by looking to other spheres in which faultless disagreement appears to be possible, mainly in matters of taste and ethics. Three possible accounts are explored: the realist account, the relativist account, and the expressivist account. The paper tries to show that in the case of legal disagreements, there is a place for an approach that can take into account our intuitions in the sense that legal disagreements are genuine and at times faultless.     

Legal Positivism and the Nature of Legal Obligation

Law and Philosophy -     

Legal Positivism, Law's Normativity, and the Normative Force of Legal Justification

In this article, I distinguish between a moral and a strictly legal conception of legal normativity, and argue that legal positivists can account for law's normativity in the strictly legal but not in the moral sense, while pointing out that normativity in the former sense is of little interest, at least to lawyers. I add, however, that while the moral conception of law's normativity is to be preferred to the strictly legal conception from the rather narrow viewpoint of the study of law's normativity, it is less attractive than the latter from the broader viewpoint of the study of the nature of law. I then distinguish between a moral and a strictly legal conception of the normative force of legal justification, and argue that legal positivists may without contradiction embrace the moral conception, and that therefore the analysis of the normative force of legal justification need not be a problem for legal positivists. I conclude that, on the whole, we have reason to prefer legal positivism to natural law theory. I begin by introducing the subject of jurisprudence (section 1). I then introduce the natural law/legal positivism debate, suggesting that we ought to understand it as a debate about the proper way to explicate the concept of law (section 2). I proceed to argue that legal decision-making is a matter of applying legal norms to facts, and that syllogistic reasoning plays a prominent role in legal decision-making thus conceived (section 3). Having done that, I discuss law's normativity (section 4), the normative force of legal justification (section 5), and the relation between the former and the latter (section 6). I conclude with a critical comment on Joseph Raz' understanding of the question of law's normativity (appendix).     

Authority, Meaning and Inclusive Legal Positivism

Book reviewed in this article:
Jules Coleman, The Practice of Principle: In Defence of a Pragmatist Approach to Legal Theory     

Positivism, Idealism and the Rule of Law

The modern lawyer operates within a conception of law as a bodyof rules. To confront the law of contract, of torts, or of property,is to familiarize oneself with an intricate set of rules. Suchfamiliarity is not yet legal scholarship, much less legal practice.For in order to use the rules as lawyers use them, the rulesmust be contemplated and considered, and the relationship betweenthe different rules must be understood. Because the intellectualprocesses involved in handling the rules exhibit a high degreeof sophistication, those intellectual processes may themselvesbecome the subject matter of philosophical argument. Thus wemay regard jurisprudential theories as embodying differing understandingsof the processes of handling legal rules; and we may conceiveof legal theory as the attempt to grasp the moral significanceof rules as a foundation for social order. This essay shalloffer some thoughts on the relationship between the rule oflaw, considered as a moral ideal, and the notion of rules asthe principal means by which legal order is manifested.     

Method, Morality and the Impossibility of Legal Positivism

Abstract. The dispute between Legal Positivists (eg, Hart) and Natural Lawyers (e.g., Finnis) concerns the existence or otherwise of a necessary (conceptual) connection between law and morality. Legal Positivists such as Hart deny this connection and assert the merely contingent relationship of law and morals. However, it can be demonstrated that implicit in the valid sociological method of concept formation of post-Austinian Positivists are interpretative or ideal-typical models of the practical rationality of the legal enterprise which are not, and cannot possibly be, value-neutral. With particular attention to the work of John Finnis and his incorporation of Weberian and Aristotelian methodological principles, this paper exposes, if not the truth of Natural Law Theory, the impossibility of Legal Positivism.     

Law, Morals and Defeasibility

This paper gives a logical characterization of the interrelation between law and morals. To this purpose it first outlines a logic for defeasible reasoning with rules and principles and illustrates the operation of this logic in the field of law. Then it offers a brief argument why law and morals are interrelated. This paper ends by showing how the logic for defeasible reasoning provides tools to logically characterize some aspects of the interrelation between law and morals.     

Theoretical Disagreement,Legal Positivism,and Interpretation

Ronald Dworkin famously argued that legal positivism is a defective account of law because it has no account of Theoretical Disagreement. In this article I argue that legal positivism—as advanced by H.L.A. Hart—does not need an account of Theoretical Disagreement. Legal positivism does, however, need a plausible account of interpretation in law. I provide such an account in this article.     

Law and the Evolutionary Turn: The Relevance of Evolutionary Psychology for Legal Positivism

In the present essay, I consider the relevance of evolutionary psychology (EP) for legal positivism, addressing the two main traditions in the legal positivist family: (1) the tradition I identify with the works of Hart and Kelsen and characterize as “normativist,” as it tries to describe law as a purely or, at least, as an essentially normative phenomenon, while remaining true to the ideal of scientific objectivity and value‐neutrality; (2) the tradition I broadly refer to as “legal realism,” which equates law with adjudication and “legal science” with the task of explaining judicial behaviour.     

论自然法学与实证主义法学的互动融合

实证主义法学自产生以来就与自然法学争论不休,曾引起学界的广泛讨论和关注,孰优孰劣,至今仍无定论.其焦点在于实证主义法学主张法律是政治统治的工具,是国家制定或认可的规则体系,而自然法学坚持法律的本质在于法律规则所反映的东西,这些东西是来源于理性积良心的道德标准或原则.但却忽视了自然法学和实证主义法学的相互补充性,事实上,它们在历史长河中是融合互动的,这种趋势在当今社会变得更加清晰、明朗.因此,未来自然法学和实证主义法学的发展,应当坚持规则和正义的统一,承认彼此相互依存,有的放矢地融为一体,共同促进法学研究不断迈向前进.     

Positivism and Plural Legal Systems

This paper considers whether the positivist account of law is useful in guiding states in how they should deal with religious or customary legal orders followed by minority groups within their jurisdiction. It argues, first, that such orders can be said to exist despite the prevalence of disagreement about the grounds of law. It then argues, contrary to views advanced by Scott Shapiro and Joseph Raz, that there are good reasons for perceiving that the resolution of legal disputes by reference to moral principle involves the application of pre‐existing law. However, the paper concludes by arguing that the Social Thesis has an important role in supplying the basis upon which the application of law can be deemed to be legitimate, and that this has relevance to the way states might respond to minority legal orders.     

Legal Positivism and Deontic Detachment

I consider a puzzle that arises when the logical principle known as “deontic detachment” is applied to the law. It is not possible to accept the principle of deontic detachment in a legal setting while also accepting that the so‐called “social facts thesis” applies to all legal propositions. According to the social facts thesis, the existence and content of law is determined by the attitudes or practices of legal officials. Abandoning deontic detachment is not an appropriate solution to the problem—the puzzle can be recreated with other plausible closure principles. The problem can be solved by restricting the social facts thesis to legal rules, rather than applying it to all legal propositions. Properly construed the social facts thesis does not apply to facts about what legally ought to be the case.