David Dyzenhaus and the Holy Grail

Abstract
In his book Hard Cases in Wicked Legal Systems David Dyzenhaus aims to provide a cogent refutation of legal positivism, and thus to settle a very old dispute in jurisprudence. His claim is that the consequences for practice and for morality if judges adopt positivist ideas in a wicked legal system are unacceptable. He discusses the South African legal system as a case in point. I argue that this claim is not secured. Dyzenhaus has three arguments for his view. The first is that positivism cannot account for legal principles, and legal principles are the key source of morally acceptable adjudication. I show that his argument does not go through for sophisticated positivist accounts of "principles" such as those of J. Raz and D. N. MacCormick. Dyzenhaus's second argument claims to find a pragmatic contradiction in positivism, between the belief in judicial discretion and the belief in a commitment to legislative sources as binding fact. I argue that there is no such commitment in a form that supports Dyzenhaus's theory. His final argument is that wicked legal systems are contrary to the very idea of law and legality. I argue that a strong doctrine of deference to legislative authority cannot be bad in itself: It can only be bad relative to a certain content to legislation. Thus Dyzenhaus's claim begs the question against positivism.     

Positivism,Legal Validity,and the Separation of Law and Morals

The essay discusses the import of the separability thesis both for legal positivism and for contemporary legal practice. First, the place of the separability thesis in legal positivism will be explored, distinguishing between “standard positivism” and “post‐Hartian positivism.” Then I will consider various kinds of relations between law and morality that are worthy of jurisprudential interest, and explore, from a positivist point of view, what kind of relations between law and morality must be rejected, what kind of such relations should be taken into account, and what kind of such relations are indeed of no import at all. The upshot of this analysis consists in highlighting the distinction between two different dimensions of legal validity (formal validity and material validity respectively), and in pointing out that the positivist separability thesis can apply to formal validity only. On the other hand, when the ascertainment of material validity is at stake, some form of moral reasoning may well be involved (here and now, it is necessarily involved). The essay concludes with some brief remarks on the persisting importance of the positivist jurisprudential project.     

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.     

Forensic psychiatry and the birth of the criminal insane asylum in modern Italy

This paper focuses on the creation of the criminal insane asylum in Italy between unification in 1861 and World War I. The establishment of criminal insane asylums was a triumph of the positivist criminology of Cesare Lombroso, who advocated for an institution to intern insane criminals in his classic work, Criminal Man (1876). As a context for the analysis of the birth of the criminal insane asylum in Italy, this essay also outlines the history of the insanity plea in Italian criminal law and the young discipline of psychiatry during the fifty years after Italian unification.     

A Memorial for jeremy bentham: memory,fiction, and writing the law

At a moment when the European Union and globalisation are, in their different contexts, bringing systems of traditional law (like the Common Law), whose texts are presented as monuments to historical legal cultures, into confrontation with systems of written law which claim to be rational embodiments of universal principles of liberal justice, how might we remember Jeremy Bentham, the pioneer of the critique of the former in the name of the latter? This essay in ‘law-and-literature’ looks at the relation between memory, fiction and writing in both the Common Law and in the two last projects for which the radical legal positivist sought to be remembered: the Constitutional Code for the Use of All Nations and All Governments Professing Liberal Opinions (1830) and Auto-Icon: Or, Farther Uses of the Dead to the Living (published posthumously in 1842). By examining Bentham’s linguistic theory and practice, the article raises questions about the relations between the ‘law’ of writing and the writing of law.     

税收法治的现实差距与对策

改革开放以来,我国的税收法治建设有了很大的进步。由于税收主体观念错误、税法体系不完善、税收执法不严等主要因素存在,与税收法治的目标有很大差距。文章从完善立法、加强执法和法律监督等几方面提出了具体的对策,以推进我国税收法治建设。     

'An Unqualified Human Good': E.P. Thompson and the Rule of Law

The late E.P. Thompson described himself as 'a historian in the Marxist tradition' But when he embraced the Rule of Law (in Whigs and Hunters , many of his colleagues on the left ostracized him as an apostate. This essay argues that Thompson's critics have largely misunderstood what he meant by the Rule of Law. His was a minimal and historical conception, which merely sought to distinguish states whose rulers had unfettered discretion from states whose rulers were constrained by legal rules, whatever their source and contents. Also, in contrast to other radical theorists, Thompson recognized that law would be a necessary institution in any complex society, no matter what its economic basis, to mediate social relations. The essay concludes with some thoughts about the relevancy of Thompson's conception of the Rule of Law for ongoing efforts to revitalize a more `radical liberalism'.     

Competition Law and the WTO: Rethinking the Relationship

This essay identifies obstacles to the inclusion of a competitionlaw regime in the WTO and suggests changes that are likely tobe necessary if competition law is to become an effective partof the WTO. Two obstacles have impeded inclusion of competitionlaw in the WTO's legal regime and are likely to continue todo so. They are (i) a lack of confidence that the norms, practicesand procedures of the WTO rest on a robust conception of communityand (ii) uncertainty and concern about what form of competitionlaw might be included and what its role in the WTO would be.In order to reduce the first of these obstacles, the institutionsand members of the WTO will need to develop a conception ofcommunity that engenders widespread confidence in the WTO'sbasic modes of operation. Eliminating the second obstacle wouldrequire clarification of the kind of competition law that wouldbe acceptable within the WTO, and this, in turn, is likely torequire development of a form of competition law that is specificallydesigned for the WTO and that can elicit the long-term supportof all categories of members. The essay suggests that the competitionlaw issue is intricately interwoven with the future of the WTO.The changes that would be necessary to introduce and successfullyimplement competition law in the WTO are to a large extent thesame as those that the institution will need to make if it isto enrich its role as an institution.     

法律规范的意义、结构及表达——一种实证的分析理论

规范性是法律的基本意义或重要特征.法律规范作为关于法律规范性的概念,不仅承载着解说法律规范性来源的理论使命,也作为法律规范性实现的基本条件之规定担当着诠释实证主义法学或"强制"或"规范"的法律规范理论的重任.实证主义法学从"法律之内"解读法律规范性的努力,使法律规范不仅是与道德没有必然联系的逻辑的和观念的意义结构体,而且有自己特殊的表达或表现.对法律规范的概念意义、逻辑结构体及其效力表达进行动态或静态的考察和分析有助于我们系统和深入地认识法律规范问题,进而深化关于法律概念及实践的理论探讨.     

Hobbes on Political Authority,Practical Reason and Truth

The role of sovereign authority in Hobbes' political philosophy is to establish peace and stability by serving as a definitive and unambiguous source of law. Although these broad outlines of Hobbes' account of political authority are uncontentious, matters quickly become more complicated once one seeks its normative basis. This much is evident from recent debates on the normative status of the laws of nature and the related issue as to whether Hobbes is better categorised as an incipient legal positivist or as a heterodox natural law thinker. In this paper I argue that although the positivist and natural law commitments in Hobbes' theory of political authority can be partially reconciled, such a reconciliation points to the need for more substantive theories of practical reason and truth than are to be found in Hobbes' official statements on these topics. Section II examines the positivist and natural law dimensions in Hobbes' thought and suggests that the role of sovereign authority in providing the definitive interpretation of the laws of nature allows a partial reconciliation to be effected. In section III, I consider the tension between this reconciliation and Hobbes' instrumentalism about practical reason and equivocal separation of authority and truth.     

Legalist Fictions and the Problem of Scientific Legitimation

The author analyzes fictions of legal positivist philosophy and their role in the scientific legitimation of modern law and political domination. The original function of legalist fictions was the establishment of legal science, which would be autonomous and independent of other social sciences and public morality. In the second half of the 20th century, legal positivist philosophy has nevertheless adopted the fiction of the just law as its scientific legitimation fiction and incorporated moral and political discourse into legal science, again.
Legal positivism and its critiques within the discourse of the sociology of law and critical legal science keep the image of a hierarchical and centralized legitimation of law. Paradoxically, current legal philosophy and theory searching for a universally valid legitimation scheme is full of many different legitimations and reveals their growing plurality and the impossibility of establishing one sovereign legitimation scheme in the current social, theoretical and political condition.     

Leiter on the Legal Realists

In this essay reviewing Brian Leiter’s recent book Naturalizing Jurisprudence, I focus on two positions that distinguish Leiter’s reading of the American legal realists from those offered in the past. The first is his claim that the realists thought the law is only locally indeterminate – primarily in cases that are appealed. The second is his claim that they did not offer a prediction theory of law, but were instead committed to a standard positivist theory. Leiter’s reading is vulnerable, because he fails to discuss in detail those passages from the realists that inspired past interpretations. My goal is to see how Leiter’s reading fares when these passages are considered. I argue that Leiter is right that the realists’ indeterminacy thesis has only a local scope. Those passages that appear to claim that the law is globally indeterminate actually address three other topics: judicial supremacy, judges’ roles as finders of fact, and the moral obligation to adjudicate as the law commands. With respect to the prediction theory, however, I conclude that Leiter’s position cannot be defended. Indeed the realists offered two ‘prediction’ theories of law. According to the first, which is best described as a decision theory, the law concerning an event is whatever concrete judgment a court will issue when the event is litigated. According to the second, the law is reduced, not to concrete judgments, but to regularities of judicial (and other official) behavior in a jurisdiction. I end this essay with the suggestion that the realists’ advocacy of the second prediction theory indirectly vindicates Leiter’s reading of the realists as prescient jurisprudential naturalists.     

论公共利益的内涵、特性及其制度基础

本文通过对公共利益内涵的辨析、特性的描述,及对公共利益的判定标准进行探讨,进一步提出了通过建立一定的机制和制度来保障公共利益的维护和实现,这对于我国当前社会处于转型期,预防和防止公共权力的滥用,切实保护公民权利,推动政府依法行政具有重要的现实意义。     

逻辑与经验：现代实证主义法学方法分析与借鉴——以哈特新分析法学方法为视角

逻辑和经验是实证主义的两大研究方法.在法学研究史上,因对这两种方法取舍的不同而形成了不同的法学流派.在当代法学研究中,逻辑和经验方法的相互结合的倾向日趋显著.以哈特为代表的新分析实证主义法学方法便是逻辑和经验实证主义方法结合的典型例证.新分析实证主义法学方法转变的实质,与其说是向自然法的靠近,毋宁说是实现了逻辑与经验方法的结合.它有利于我国的法治建设与法学研究.     

Crossing Boundaries: Nineteenth-Century Domestic Relations law and the Merger of Family and legal History

This essay argues for the need to study the legal history of the American family. It does so by combining a critique of secondary literature in family and legal history with examples from nineteenth-century domestic relations law. These examples, drawn from family law doctrines on seduction under the cover of a marriage promise, runaway marriages, and bastardy, are used to indicate the benefits of adding a sociocultural dimension to legal history and legal and institutional dimensions to family history. Three main themes in the history of nineteenth-century domestic relations law are developed to make these points: the law's particular fabric of issues, its distribution of authorship, and its chronological development, These themes suggest why a full understanding of the legal history of the American family requires crossing the boundaries between legal and family history.     

From Betrayal to Violence: Dante's Inferno and the Social Construction of Crime

This essay reflects on contemporary justifications for the grading of crimes, especially the conception that the gravity of crimes is rooted in "desert," understood to depend particularly on the offender's state of mind and to a lesser extent on the harm done or threatened to society.
Drawing on Dante's Inferno, the essay shows how the gravity of crimes is socially constructed. For reasons rooted in the sociopolitical forces, as well as the philosophy and law of his day, Dante found the crimes most deserving of punishment to be those of betrayal of trust. He conceived such crimes to be the most deliberate and to do the most damage to the social fabric. Contemporary law has found that crimes of betrayal are generally less deserving of punishment than crimes of violence; the essay shows how social and historical forces, including even the traditions upon which Dante drew, have shaped this choice. In the course of grading crimes in this way, the law has altered its conceptions of "intent" as well as of harm to society so radically that the notion of "desert" has lost much of its coherence. The importance of trust in modern society, moreover, has been misunderstood in the contemporary grading of crimes.     

Injustice in Robes: Iniquity and Judicial Accountability*

The paper addresses the question of judges' moral responsibility in an unjust society. How is the “moral” judge to reconcile his perception of justice with a malevolent law? Upon what grounds might judges, and perhaps other public officials, be held morally responsible for their acts or omissions? Does a positivist approach yield a more satisfactory resolution than a natural law or Dworkinian analysis? Could inclusive positivism offer any clues as to how this quandary might be judiciously resolved?     

法律的"概念"澄明——评H.L.A.哈特《法律的概念》

日常语言分析哲学家并新分析实证主义法学的创始人哈特,在《法律的概念》一书中,从语词用法的日常语言分析入手,通过法律"游戏"中第一性规则与第二性规则之结合作为关键的"法律"概念纵向语境把握,以及"主权者"、"命令"、"正义"、"道德"诸概念讨论之"法律"概念横向比较,成功地将法律"概念"的理解由对于某种具有确定客观属性的法律实体的认识转向了日常语言层面的澄明,开创了一个全新的日常语言分析法学流派.     

Law as Convention

Abstract. The widely recognized impasse in legal theory, which requires an account of law as "both a social fact and a framework of reasons for action" has been most interestingly addressed in recent years by writers characterizing law as convention in the sense of a solution to a game theoretical "coordination problem." As critics have neutralized most of these proposals, the author advances an account of conventionalism, drawing on economic and sociological theory, which he claims makes the bridge between positivist and naturalist theories of law without compromising the basic insights of either. The result is a unified theory of law, politics and society.