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The rise of legal formalism; or the defences of legal faith

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Peter Goodrich
Peter Goodrich*
Affiliation:
Liverpool Polytechnic
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Extract

‘Just as in religion, so long as there is a religion, there must be a dogmatic theology, which cannot be replaced by any religious psychology or sociology, so, as long as there is a law, there must be a normative theory of law.’ H. Kelsen

In terms of the history of the social sciences, the latter quarter of the nineteenth century was characterised in no uncertain manner by neo-Kantianism. The revival in question was aimed at rehabilitating the Kantian concept of science as a system, unified essentially by the idea of a system rather than by any more realistic or historical classification of its subject matter. The most notable and far-reaching effects of this revival were to be the constitution of the sciences of linguistics and of law. In both cases the major portion of the nineteenth century had been dominated by attacks upon the received orthodoxies of universal grammar and of exegetical legal studies, respectively, and their displacement by the uncertainties of creationist and historical methodologies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , November 1983 , pp. 248 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 1983

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References

1. Kelsen, H. ‘The Pure Theory of Law, Its Methods and Fundamental Concepts’ (1934)50 Google Scholar LQR 474 at 490.

2. For the Pure Theory of Law, cf Ebenstein, W. The Pure Theory of Law (1969, New York)Google Scholar; Stewart, I. ‘Sociology in Jurisprudence’, in Fryer, B. et al (eds) Law, State and Society (1981, Croom Helm) p. 107 Google Scholar. For more general accounts, cf Foucault, M. The Order of Things (1970, Tavistock) pp. 358 Google Scholar ff: Timpanaro, S. On Materialism (1975, London) Ch. 4Google Scholar; Clarke, S. The Foundations of Structuralism (1981, Harvester)Google Scholar.

3. H. Kelsen (1934) 50 LQR at 490.

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6. H. Kelsen, (1934) 50 LQR at 477, 486.

7. See the very useful historical essays collected in What is Justice (1957, University of California Press). Kelsen's theme in these essays is that of an unstinted attack upon any and all attempts to introduce any consideration of questions of morality or justice into legal science. I cannot refrain from citing his extraordinary conclusion to the essay ‘Natural Law before the Tribunal of Science’: ‘From the point of view of science (natural law) method is entirely worthless. In the ‘Laws’ Plato distinguishes lies which are, and those that are not permissible. Lies are permissible if they are useful to the state. That the natural law doctrine, as it pretends, is able to determine in an objective way what is just is a lie; but those who consider it useful may make use of it as a useful lie.’(p. 173).

8. General Theory of Law and State (1946) pp. 434–435 Google Scholar.

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12. General Theory of Law and State (1946) p. XIII.

13. What is Justice (1957) p. 262.

14. Pure Theory of Law (1970) p. 218 Google ScholarPubMed. A point repeated ad infiniturn by the later proponents of legal positivism. See, for a recent example, MacCormick, D. N. ‘Law, Morality and Positivism’ (1981) 2 Legal Studies 131 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. Critique of Pure Reason (1887) p. 7 Google ScholarPubMed: ‘In all judgements wherein the relation of the subject to the predicate is cogitated … this relation is possible in two different ways. Either the predicate B belongs to the subject A, as something which is contained (covertly) in the conception A; or the predicate B lies completely outside of the conception A, although it stands in connexion with it. In the first instance, I term the judgement analytic, in the second, synthetic.’

16. Pure Theory of Law (1970) p. 75.

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18. Ibid p. 173.

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43. Kelsen, The Communist Theory of Law (1976, Aalen) passim. Google Scholar

24. General Theory supra, p. 124.

25. Pure Theory (1970) pp. 276, 245.

26. Ibid p. 319.

27. Ibid p. 352.

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34. It is not insignificant that de Saussure, F. Course in General Linguistics (1966, McGraw-Hill)Google Scholar, the progenitor of modern anthropological and literary structuralisms, lays especial emphasis upon the notion of social fact, but similarly fails to provide the notion with any substantive social content.

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36. Concept of Law (1962) pp. 89–90.

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38. Ibid p. 107.

39. Cf Philosophical Investigations (1963) paras. 50 and 75.

40. Concept of Law (1962) p. 103. See Raz, J., op cit, pp. 197–202 Google Scholar for a different account.

41. Ibid p. 60.

42. Ibid p. 111. Compare Austin, J. The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1954, London) pp. 63 Google Scholar ff.

43. Pure Theory (1970) p. 218.

44. Definition and Theory (1953). For appreciative accounts of this linguistic background, see MacCormick, D. N. H. L. A. Hurt (1981, Arnold) Ch 1Google Scholar; Hacker, P. M. and Raz, J. Law, Morality and Society (1977, Oxford) Ch 1Google Scholar. For a more critical and thorough account see Moore, M. S. ‘The Semantics of Judging’ (1981) 54 Southern California Law Review 151 Google Scholar.

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51. Concept of Law (1962) p. 123.

52. Ibid p. 128.

53. Dworkin, R. Taking Rights Seriously (1978, Duckworth) Chs 2–4 Google ScholarPubMed.

54. MacCormick, D. N. Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory (1978, Clarendon) Ch VIIIGoogle Scholar.

55. Viscountess Rhondda's Claim (1922) 2 Google ScholarPubMed AC 389.

56. Ibid at 463–464.