Schauer's Anti‐Essentialism |
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| Authors: | Torben Spaak |
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| Affiliation: | Department of Law, Stockholm University, Stockholm , SwedenI would like to thank the participants in the workshop “The Force of Law. A Workshop with Fred Schauer” at Bocconi University, Milan on 2–3 October 2014, for helpful comments on my presentation of the ideas in this article. I would also like to thank the participants in the advanced seminar in practical philosophy, Uppsala University, especially Jens Johansson, for helpful comments on an earlier version of the article, and ?ke Fr?ndberg and Patricia Mindus for equally helpful comments on an even earlier version of the article. Finally, I would like to thank Robert Carroll for checking my English. As always, the responsibility for any remaining errors and imperfections in the article rests with the author alone. |
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| Abstract: | In his new book, The Force of Law, Frederick Schauer maintains that law has no necessary properties (a position he calls legal anti‐essentialism), and that therefore jurisprudents should not assume that an inquiry into the nature of law has to be a search for such properties. I argue, however, that Schauer's attempt to show that legal anti‐essentialism is a defensible position fails, because his one main argument (the cognitive science argument) is either irrelevant or else incomplete, depending on how one understands it, and because the other main argument (the family resemblance argument) is false. |
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