Moral Objectivity and Reasonable Agreement: Can Realism Be Reconciled with Kantian Constructivism?

Abstract. In this paper I analyze the tension between realism and antirealism at the basis of Kantian constructivism. This tension generates a conflictive account of the source of the validity of social norms. On the one hand, the claim to moral objectivity characteristic of Kantian moral theories makes the validity of norms depend on realist assumptions concerning the existence of shared fundamental interests among all rational human beings. I illustrate this claim through a comparison of the approaches of Rawls, Habermas and Scanlon. On the other hand, however, objections to moral realism motivate many Kantian constructivists to endorse the antirealist claim that reasonable agreement is the source of the validity of social norms. After analyzing the difficulties in the latter strategy, I try to show how a balance between the realist and antirealist elements of Kantian constructivism can be reached by drawing a sharper distinction between the justice and the legitimacy of social norms.     

Legal System and Practical Reason. On the Structure of a Normative Theory of Law*

Abstract
It will be argued, firstly, that there is a link between the legal validity of a norm and the rational justifiability of a requirement that judges should apply this norm, based on a normative conception of legal validity and the postulate that judges should act as rational persons; secondly, that rational justifiability of legal norms requires the construction of a legal system in a model of principles that differs from theories, e.g., of Kelsen, Hart, Dworkin and Alexy, which are not fully adequate for a normative conception of law.     

Discourse Ethics and the Legitimacy of Law

Abstract. The reconstructive theory of the procedural legitimacy of modern law developed on the basis of the theory of discourse ethics has limited itself solely to the deontological, moral-normative aspects of the validity claims of legal norms and judgments. However, teleological and axiological aspects are also intertwined with legal validity claims and with the procedures in which legal norms and judgments are produced. The discursive-procedural concept of legitimacy seems to require as its support, instead of the theory of discourse ethics, a general theory of practical discourses or, more generally, of rational collective will-formation.     

Some Remarks on the Notions of Legal Order and Legal System

Abstract
In this paper, the authors discuss some problems related to the existence and identity of legal norms and legal systems. Firstly, two criteria for identification of legal norms are analyzed: linguistic criteria and non-linguistic criteria. Secondly, the dynamics of legal systems and the distinction between legal system and legal order are examined (close to Raz's distinction between momentary legal system and legal system). Based on the logical relations of membership and inclusion, two ways of analysing the change of legal systems are suggested. Thirdly, a criterion for identification of legal orders (from Bulygin) is discussed and it is shown that this criterion does not explain adequately, on the one hand, the existence of some norms, i.e., customary norms; and, on the other, the existence of invalid norms; i.e., unconstitutional norms. The main conclusions of this paper are: (a) the concepts of legal system and legal order could not explain the existence of law in a given society; (b) the concepts of legal system and legal order could be considered models of rational normative systems.     

The Creation of Normative Facts

In Kelsen's formalist and reductionisttheory of law, the concepts of `authority' and`competence' may be explained exclusively in termsof those norms on which the validity of other legalnorms or of legal acts is dependent. Kelsen describesthe nature of these norms in different ways; at leastthree different conceptions can be distinguished. Arational reconstruction of the most plausible of theseconceptions will understand sentences expressing such`norms of competence' either to state truthconditions for normative sentences of a lower level orto state criteria for an act to be a legal act. Inboth functions, norms of competence regulate thecreation of normative facts.     

Legal Authority as a Social Fact

From a sociological point of view, theconceptual and logical relations between the norms oflegal order represent empirical and causal relationsbetween social actors. The claim that legal authorityis based on the validity of empowering norms means,sociologically, that the capability to enact andenforce legal norms is based on an empirical transferof power from one social actor to another. With thisprocess, sociology has to explain how a proclamationof legal rights by the creation of empowering normscan lead to the establishment of the factual power ofcoercion. This explanation reveals that legalauthority as a social fact is irrevocably dependent onnon-legal power, which is not created by legalempowering norms but is the empirical foundation forall legal authority and state power.     

From Protecting to Promoting: Evolving EU Sex Equality Norms in an Organisational Field

This paper builds on a process–oriented approach which examines constitutionalism with respect to both legislation and social practices. Drawing on the institutionalist concept of the organisational field it provides tools for explaining the emergence of the distinct connectedness and isomorphism of European sex equality norms. The paper elucidates the shifting meaning of sex equality in the field of employment on the one hand, as it demonstrates the close ties between sex equality law and the constitutional status of gender norms on the other. Contrary to both the intergovernmentalist and neo–functionalist approaches in European integration studies, the concept of 'institutionalist field' allows for explication of shifting institutional demands that work beyond the rational interests of the nation–state. The field approach thus emphasises the interrelation between legal and political actors and their respective shared cognition which defines what bears meaning.     

如何刻画法律推理中的事实与规范

法律推理过程包含着权力与利益、应然与实然、确定性与妥当性、客观解释与主观解释等矛盾,法律推理促动法律规范由普遍规则到个案规则适用,法律推理涉及法律事实认定、法律规范识别、法律价值追寻,涉及推理主体关于知识论与实践理性的思考,法律推理的重心由立法领域到司法领域、由法律本体论到方法论、由法律移植到制度理性整合、由宏观论证到微观分析的转向。法律推理呈现内部逻辑强制与外部言说理性互动的特征,已经由法律文本所体现的规范层面转向法律施行的实践层面,形成事实与价值、事实与规范的交互流转。     

Second-chance Punitivism and the Contractual Governance of Crime and Incivility: New Labour, Old Hobbes

The growing application of mechanisms of contractual governance to behaviour that breaches social norms, rather than the criminal law, appears to represent an ethopolitical concern with delinquent self-reform through the activation of technologies of the self. In fact, there is little empirical evidence that the contractual governance of incivility leads to such self-reform. Beneath the ideology of contractual agreement to observe social norms lies what this paper calls a 'second-chance punitivism' which operates to crystallize behavioural elements of the Hobbesian social contract, after breach, into a more specific form. The responsibilizing and individualizing properties of this form of contractual governance set the moral-ideological platform for a retributive punitivism, when the rational agents it creates fail to live up to their image, and are taken to have wasted their 'second chance'.     

宪法至上与权威合法化

权威是保证国家政治忠诚、维持稳定的重要元素,它需要合法化支撑。合法化与合法性不同。合法性涉及规范和评价,合法化是一个过程。法治国家权威是形式宪法与实质宪法的结合体,其合法化条件包括社会力量和利益冲突、力量对比、工具意义上的宪法。宪法权威合法化的生成除修改宪法之外,尚需积累进化理性形成宪法惯例及发展宪法解释,以促进政治忠诚与自主性的结合,保持社会发展的活力。     

权利的社会本原——在社会冲突与社会合作的视野下

在权利产生、存在与发展的动态过程中,权利的实现能吸纳或者消解相当一部分社会冲突, 促成一系列社会合作,使社会秩序得以形成、维系并协调发展。社会冲突在伸张主体利益的同时,有利于提升权利意识;其在重划利益格局的同时,有利于创设新的权利规范。社会合作所具有的消除社会冲突、促进社会有序的功能为权利的实现提供了可能性,安全、和平、有序的社会状态有利于权利的实现。而且, 社会合作为权利的实现增加了有效性。在社会合作中,行为规则的确立和行为理性的运用使行为结果具有可预测性,从而降低了行为成本,增加了权利实现的顺畅性和有效性。     

Deontic Logic as Logic of Legal Norms: Two Main Sources of Problems

Abstract .
The paper offers a critical survey of two main sorts of problems hindering the possibility of conceiving deontic logic as a suitable account of the logical behaviour of (sentences expressing) legal norms. The notion of "legal norm" is viewed as the main source of the first sort of problems: (a) the typological variety of legal norms requires an account both of the differing logical behaviour of (sentences expressing) differing legal norms, and of the relations which might hold amon them; (b) the ontologic, semantic, and epistemic features of legal norms shed doubt on the very attempt to figure out a logical analysis of (sentences expressing) legal norms. The notion of "systemic legal validity" is viewed as the main source of the second sort of problems: Deontic logic does not provide suitable logical tools to account for legal phenomena like enactment, derogation, and conflicts between legal norms which rely on systemic legal validity.     

Sources,Recognition and the Unity of the Legal System

A critical analysis of Kelsen’s theory leads to a broad concept of custom, which covers diverse types of customary norms, where the always required conviction of legal bindingness depends on different types of factual and normative reasons. In it we should include a strict concept of custom or legal usage, derogating custom, custom of general international law, custom that establishes an unwritten constitution, custom that establishes a new written constitution, judicial custom which creates a rule of precedent and custom newly expressed in the judicial application of customary rules. The basic norm could be formulated as a constitutive norm: ‘If the norms created through the first historical constitution are effective, then the first historical constitution (and all the norms derived from it) are valid.’ It is thus a customary constitutive rule that recognizes the first historical constitution as valid law. Norms which establish sources of law are constitutive rules, they can be customary norms or legislated norms, but if they are legislated, they have their validity recognized by, directly or indirectly, a constitutive customary norm. By using a broad concept of custom as a conventional practice, Hart implies that general recognition of a customary rule, together with the practice that accompanies it, are sufficient conditions of validity. A doctrine of recognition that is arrived at by means of criticism and a rational reconstruction of the doctrines of Kelsen and Hart regains the essential theses of the traditional recognition theory of Bierling and Engisch.

     

藏族习惯法司法适用的方式和程序研究——以四川省甘孜州地区的藏族习惯法为例

藏族习惯法是从藏族原始社会的习惯、禁忌、图腾崇拜及特定的宗教信仰发展衍生而来的一种行为规范,它是指藏民在日常生活中加以确认或制定,并通过部落组织赋予其强制力或法律效力,由藏区各部落强制保证实施并靠盟誓约定的方式调解部落内外关系的具有法律效力的社会规范。在四川省甘孜州地区,藏族习惯法在司法审判中仍然发挥其作用。我们应发挥其积极作用,限制其消极作用。     

Validity and Defeasibility in the Legal Domain

In jurisprudential literature, the adjective ‘defeasible’ appears as a predicate of many terms: concepts, laws, rules, reasoning, justification, proof, and so on. In this paper, we analyze the effects of some versions of the thesis of the defeasibility of legal norms on the reconstruction of the notion of legal validity. We analyze some possible justifications of this thesis considered as a claim concerning validity, and enquire into two possible sets of problems related to the defeasibility of the criteria of identification of a legal system. We also provide a formalization of some options regarding defeasible criteria of identification, which can be used as a tool for meta-jurisprudential analysis. Finally, the thesis according to which defeasibility is better conceived of as a feature of legal application is examined and questioned.     

‘Ménages irréguliers’: interracial liaisons in colonial Indochina, 1905–1938

This article explores the history of relationships between Vietnamese women and French men in colonial Indochina as well as the multiplicity of perspectives on these unions. Relationships between Vietnamese women and French men were shaped by a lack of social integration and the skewed sex ratio among the French populations in the region. For French colonizers, these unions complicated the legal and social criteria for ‘being French’ in the colony and were perceived as both a practical necessity and a political threat. Vietnamese discourse on interracial unions demonstrated a preoccupation with changing sexual norms as well as preservation of cultural traditions. By engaging with both Vietnamese and French sources, the article moves away from mainstream colonial Eurocentric parlance that typically cast Vietnamese women as dominated and powerless, and instead highlights the women’s various degrees of agency as well as different motivations and practices in interracial unions.     

哈贝马斯的法律“有效性”概念的四重意蕴

哈贝马斯的法律“有效性”概念具有四重意蕴：一是整合性意蕴,是对既有的法律有效性概念尤其是哈特和德沃金的法律有效性概念的总结和整合;二是超越性意蕴,哈特和德沃金将法律的事实有效性和规范有效性对立起来,而哈贝马斯的法律有效性概念则将这两个维度统一起来;三是反思性意蕴,他将现代法律理解为行动系统,是建制化和合法化的统一,揭示出现代法律的实质是“事实性和有效性之间的社会媒介”,法律之“应该”最终体现在法律之“是”上;四是批判性意蕴,哈贝马斯只是在“程序”这一维度上作出了自己贡献,现代法律的有效性应该是哈特的“形式”、德沃金的“内容”和哈贝马斯的“程序”这三者的融合。     

Morality, social norms and the rule of law as transaction cost-saving devices: the case of ancient Athens

The importance of the institutional framework for economic development is widely accepted today and it is duly stressed in the economic literature. The protection of property rights, the enforcement of contracts and an efficient legal system are the pillars of the contemporary rule of law. However, formal institutions cannot function without being internalized by the citizens and without the strong backing of social norms. Morality and social norms are the major elements of the informal institutional structure, the social capital, which is also critical for social welfare and economic development. In this paper we will discuss both the formal and the informal institutional framework of Ancient Athens, which was a free market society with economic problems similar to contemporary market societies. Athenians developed a highly sophisticated legal framework for the protection of private property, the enforcement of contracts and the efficient resolution of disputes. Such an institutional framework functioned effectively, cultivating trust and protecting the security of transactions. This entire system however was based on social norms such as reciprocity, the value of reputation and widely accepted business ethics. Conformity to social norms as well as moral behavior was fostered by social sanction mechanisms (such as stigma) and moral education. The Athenian example is a further proof of the importance of morality and social norms as transaction cost-saving devices even in quite sophisticated legal systems. Their absence or decline leads inevitably to the need for more regulation and litigation and to a growing preference for clear-cut rules instead of discretionary standards. Athenian law was pioneering in the development of rules and institutional mechanisms suitable for the reduction of transaction costs, many of them surviving in the most complex contemporary legal systems.     

论经济法的道德性

从本源上看,经济法的道德性来自对企业的社会责任伦理、公平交易伦理、经济行政责任伦理、可持续发展伦理以及公平分配伦理等社会经济伦理的法律提升。而一旦现实的经济伦理道德进入经济法领域,就使得经济法表现出独特的、鲜明的道德性特征。具体而言,经济法的道德性表现在经济法律规范的价值内涵、经济法对社会中各种利益的价值判断标准、经济法的非强制性和经济法对社会生活发挥能动作用的形式等方面。