《法律的概念》的功利主义检讨——以法律与道德的分离为中心

《法律的概念》一书在试图进行一种不带任何论证目的的描述性分析的同时,却无时无刻不被功利主义这一幽灵所萦绕。那么,鉴于功利主义的人性预设的价值判断,作为一种理想类型划分的道德与法律的分离命题就需要重新检讨检讨的过程折射出了法律实证主义的自由主义悖论,进而开放出了法律实证主义在自由主义传统下如何处理功利主义与个人自由间关系的问题。     

论哈特对边沁功利主义法学思想的扬弃

边沁将功利主义运用到法学研究里,提出了功利主义法学思想,对自然法思想进行了猛烈的抨击,其之后的继承者也将这个思想扬弃,在分析实证主义鼻祖奥斯丁这里,其许多思想仍采用功利主义法学观点引用到分析实证法学里面,作为分析实证主义杰出代表人物,哈特更是继承并发扬了边沁的功利主义法学观点,本文试从这个角度出发来挖掘哈特的功利主义法学思想,以便更好的理解哈特和分析实证主义法学。     

从功利主义和正义论出发浅析正义观

功利主义法学曾经在西方长期占主导地位,产生巨大的影响。后来有很多学者批判了功利主义,最著名的是罗尔斯的《正义论》(1971)。它在更高的抽象水平上为自由主义和民主社会提供了功利主义之外的社会契约论基础上的论证。本文从正义论的角度批判了功利主义正义观的缺陷。     

自由主义的契约论证成

自由主义尽管不是一种紧密的和牢固确定的学说,但仍有其单一传统与基本理念,其中自由主义的普遍主义理念为自由主义价值体系中的重要组成部分,而证成自由主义的普世性有功利主义与社会契约两种途径,其中契约论的证成思想可谓源远流长。本文指出自由主义与契约论的命运息息相关,它们面临着许多相似的问题与挑战,而且契约论本身存在着对自由主义的证成之优势。     

法实证主义理论中的“人类形象”

法实证主义理论中的“人类形象”着重于“个人”的分析与建构。由于哲学基础和方法论立场的不同，此种对于“个人”的分析与建构存在着很多差异：边沁和奥斯丁的功利化表达立足于经验哲学和功利主义；凯尔森的符号化表达立足于新康德主义哲学；哈特的去功利化表达则是在面对现代道德哲学的挑战时所作出的让步。通过对“个人”的形象在法实证主义理论中的学术史考察，我们可以展示出法实证主义的人学维度。     

权利与自主:自由主义内在的价值坐标

自由主义的发展史本质上是不同理论映射下自由理论的变迁,把自由主义的价值坐标界定为权利与自主,旨在说明:其一,自由主义视域下讨论问题围绕的中轴为自主与权利;其二,在功利主义契约论的转换中自主与权利的内核并未发生改变;其三,自由被视为自主,权利被视为个人自主的框架,两者在一定程度上虽有同一性,但是在本质上依然存在差异。     

密尔思想的内在张力

是否存在一个功利主义的密尔和另一个自由主义的密尔?传统学派和修正学派对此提出了不同看法,从另外一个角度出发来解释这个命题,即认识论立场的不同,才是密尔思想中张力的根源。在自由主义立场中,密尔坚持绝对真理不可知,因此,追求个体性与多样性成为了进步之源;但在功利主义立场中,密尔又坚持幸福的层级性,生活方式具有优劣之分,因此,人类应当追求高级的快乐和卓越的生活方式。应当从认识论的维度、政治制度的维度和社会历史的维度对这种张力进行解释。归根结底,是时代催生了这种张力。     

浅谈边沁的分析实证主义法学

本文分析杰里米·边沁的两个主要思想:法律二元论及法律命令说;功利主义原则。边沁作为分析法学的鼻祖,通过分析归结他的思想,我们便可以窥一斑而见全豹来了解分析实证主义法学的起源和发展,从而更深刻地理解分析法学派的思想。     

国际海商事公约的效力基础

国际海商事公约制定,实质是功利主义的合目的理性需求而脱离了法律的价值立法,即采用实证主义,实际是把法律效力来源寄予主权者的命令,而由于不存在这种类似国家的主权者,因此,最终最大多数国家的最大利益成为公约效力的来源,即通过对利益最大化的计算或者投票,多数人投票裁决的同意方式来进行决定。功利主义与人们对社会正义所做的思考难以协调起来。一个真正的国际航运秩序和最高程度的自决是不相容的。     

德国宪法学的实证主义转向及其根本问题

1848年德国自由主义革命失败后,以格贝尔-拉班德为代表的德国宪法学家运用源自潘德克顿法学的教义学方法并继承施塔尔形式法治国思想去研究德意志各种实证宪法材料,德国宪法学走向彻底的实证主义,其技术表达就是宪法学教义学化。实证主义宪法学的根本局限体现在他们把君主的权力与意志置于核心地位,贬低基本权利,力图将公法权利压到最小程度,本质上是以君主意志为中心来建构国家配置权力。追求纯科学化的实证主义宪法理论,奉行绝对客观性的教条化立场,没能回答并处理好对德国实现自由宪政最关键的一系列实质问题,无法确保个人自由权利与分权机制在德国政治与社会的真正落实。实证主义宪法学传统缺少对个人的价值关怀这个根本缺陷加深了德国宪法思想与现代宪法人权传统的内在分野。     

法律实证主义的命题研究

法律实证主义基本命题包括“分离命题”、“社会事实命题”、“社会惯习命题”和“裁量命题”。通过对这一问题的探讨,更有利于凸现实证主义主要思想理论的传承关系,并使我们对实证主义的认知更为体系化、完整化。     

Getting Real or Staying Positive: Legal Realism(s), Legal Positivism and the Prospects of Naturalism in Jurisprudence

The relationship between Legal Realism and Legal Positivism has been a recurrent source of debate. The question has been further complicated by the related difficulty of assessing the internal relationship between the two main original strands of Legal Realism: American and Scandinavian. This paper suggests considering American and Scandinavian Realism as instantiations of forward‐looking and backward‐looking rule skepticism respectively. This distinction brings into sharp relief not only the fundamentally different relationship between each of these two Realist schools and Legal Positivism but also their equally different potentials as starting points for naturalizing jurisprudence.     

Elmer's case: A legal positivist replies to Dworkin

Conclusion I have argued that Legal Positivism can accommodate the existence oftheoretical disagreements in law and that Ronald Dworkin is wrongto claim otherwise. As far as Legal Positivists are concerned, evenjudges who differ over both the truth of propositions of law and thegrounds or sources of law can have a legal duty to resolve their dis-agreements on the basis of legal arguments. The duty exists whenconventional legal practice creates it. Moreover, all Anglo-Americanlegal systems impose the duty on judges because all such systemscontain legal practices of the right sort: practices creating expectationsthat cases will be decided on the law even when they raise doubtsabout the content or proper formulation of a rule of recognition.Thus, Elmer's Case poses no threat to Legal Positivism. To the con-trary, it reveals the richness of that theory as few other cases can.Only if Elmer's Case is detached from the context of Anglo-American adjudication can it be said to undermine Legal Positivism.But then no theory of positive law could withstand its challenge.A draft of this essay was presented at a political theory workshop at the University of Chicago. I am grateful for comments received from Russell Hardin, Leo Katz, Steven Fletcher and Thomas Christiano on that occasion. I also thank Steven Walt and Jules Coleman, two of the better dressed philosophers I know.     

Being Positive About Positivism

Book reviewed in this article:
Matthew H. Kramer, In Defense of Legal Positivism: Law Without Trimmings     

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.     

Moral Principles and Legal Validity

Two recent high‐quality articles, including one in this journal, have challenged the Inclusivist and Incorporationist varieties of legal positivism. David Lefkowitz and Michael Giudice, writing from perspectives heavily influenced by the work of Joseph Raz, have endeavored—in sophisticated and interestingly distinct ways—to vindicate Raz's contention that moral principles are never among the law‐validating criteria in any legal system nor among the laws that are applied as binding bases for adjudicative and administrative decisions in such a system. The present article responds to their defenses of Raz's Exclusive Legal Positivism.     

Kelsen's Development of the Fehlerkalkül-Theory

Abstract.  In this article the author follows the argumentative ascent of the Vienna School of Legal Positivism, and especially of Hans Kelsen, as concerns the intellectual topos of "law contrary to law." The issues dealt with feature under various headings—albeit always prominently—in the national schools of legal theory. What distinguishes the Viennese approach is the extraordinary generality and height of abstraction it has reached and that facilitates the unification of most disparate legal phenomena. The intention of the article is threefold: firstly, to bring the important, albeit mostly maltreated theory of the Fehlerkalkül ("error-calculus") into the light of theoretical attention; secondly, to demonstrate Kelsen's method of developing legal philosophy only given concrete problems of the positive law and its theory; finally, to deal with criticism.     

One Myth of the Classical Natural Law Theory: Reflecting on the “Thin” View of Legal Positivism

Much controversy has emerged on the demarcation between legal positivism and non‐legal positivism with some authors calling for a ban on the ‐as they see it‐ nonsensical labelling of legal philosophical debates. We agree with these critics; simplistic labelling cannot replace the work of sophisticated and sound argumentation. In this paper we do not use the term ‘legal positivism’ as a simplistic label but identify a specific position which we consider to be the most appealing and plausible view on legal positivism. This is the view advocated by Gardner in his paper 'Legal Positivism: 5½ Myths’ (Gardner 2001 , 199), where he carefully scrutinises the most convincing and unifying postulates of legal positivism, which he calls “the thin view”. The study shows that this thin view presupposes an empirical conception of action that is untenable and implausible since it makes acts of engagement with the law unintelligible to an observer of such acts.     

Beyond Inclusive Legal Positivism*

In this essay, I characterize the original intervention that became Inclusive Legal Positivism, defend it against a range of powerful objections, explain its contribution to jurisprudence, and display its limitations and its modest jurisprudential significance. I also show how in its original formulations ILP depends on three notions that are either mistaken or inessential to law: the separability thesis, the rule of recognition, and the idea of criteria of legality. The first is false and is in event inessential to legal positivism. The second is inessential to legal positivism. The third is likely inessential to law. I then characterize the central claim of ILP in a way that relies on none of these: ILP is the claim that necessarily social facts determine the determinants of legal content. I show that ILP so conceived leaves the central debates in law largely untouched. I suggest how the most fundamental of these—the question of the normativity of law—at least can be usefully addressed. The essay closes by suggesting that even though one can distinguish the social from the normative dimensions of law, a theory of the nature of law is necessarily an account of the relationship between the two: It is a theory either of the difference that certain distinctive social facts make in normative space, or it is an account of the distinctive normative difference that law makes, and the social and other facts that are necessary to explain that difference. One can distinguish between but one cannot separate the social from the normative aspects of legality.