On two paradigms of legal theory and their relationship
- H. L. A. Hart thought that a theory of law can be purely descriptive and called his theory a “descriptive sociology”. One of his great contributions to modern legal theory is his emphasis on the internal aspect of social rules. According to him, a theory of law can be built on the basis of the description of the participants’ view without sharing with it. This descriptivism is totally rejected by Dworkin, who propagates a theory that denies a sharp separation between a legal theory and its implications for adjudication. For Dworkin, a legal theory is only possible as a theory with “the internal, participants’ point of view”. Dworkin’s position implies a radicalization of legal theory that will transform the statement of an external point of view to that of an internal one. For Dworkin, the descriptivism bases on the sociological concept of law, which is an “imprecise criterial concept” and is “not sufficiently precise to yield philosophically interesting essential features.”Hart’s position is vulnerable because it takes an impure form of descriptivism that still draws a categorical distinction between fact and norm. This theoretical impurity results from the ambiguity of interpreting the internal aspect of rules. A strategy to rescue the Hart’s project is to radicalize his descriptivism with Luhmann's systems theory. Adapting the systems theoretical distinction between internal and external observation of law with all its implications for the explanation of the legal system and legal communications, Hart’s descriptivism finally attains its pure form, which is not only a distinctive paradigm of legal theory, but also possesses the potentialities to clarify its relationship to the legal theory based on the internal aspect of law.
Author: | Chia-yin Chang |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-249100 |
Parent Title (English): | 25th IVR World Congress: Law, Science and Technology Frankfurt am Main 15–20 August 2011 ; Paper Series ; 052 |
Series (Serial Number): | 25th IVR World Congress: Law, Science and Technology Frankfurt am Main 15–20 August 2011 ; Paper Series (052) |
Publisher: | Goethe-Univ. |
Place of publication: | Frankfurt am Main |
Document Type: | Conference Proceeding |
Language: | English |
Year of Completion: | 2012 |
Year of first Publication: | 2012 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Release Date: | 2012/07/20 |
Tag: | Dworkin; Hart; Luhmann; descriptivism; interpretivism; legal theory; paradigm; system theory |
Page Number: | 12 |
HeBIS-PPN: | 344414779 |
Institutes: | Rechtswissenschaft / Rechtswissenschaft |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 34 Recht / 340 Recht |
Sammlungen: | Universitätspublikationen |
Licence (German): | Deutsches Urheberrecht |