On the incoherence of legal positivism

Notre Dame Law Review

Volumn 75, Issue 5, 2000, Pages 1597-1611

  Finnis, John ^a,b  

^a NOTRE DAME LAW SCHOOL   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0034379249     PISSN: 07453515     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. See PLATO, LAWS IV.
2. See ARISTOTLE, NICOMACHEAN ETHICS bk. I, § 13.
3. See CICERO, DE FINIBUS 1.7, 3.20.
4. See, e.g., HANS KELSEN, GENERAL THEORY OF NORMS 226 (Michael Hartney trans., Oxford Univ. Press 1990).
5. 2 SAMUEL PUFENDORF, ELEMENTORUM JURISPRUDENTIAE UNIVERSALIS LIBRI Duo (William Abbott Oldfather trans., Clarendon Press 1931) (1672).
6. JOHN LOCKE, QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE LAW OF NATURE (Robert Horwitz et al. trans., Cornell Univ. Press 1990) (1664).
7. 2 PUFENDORF, supra note 5, at xxx.
8. HUGO GROTIUS, ON THE LAW OF WAR AND PEACE bk. I, at 38 (Francis W. Kelsey trans., William S. Hein & Co. 1995) (1625).
9. LOCKE, supra note 6, at 193.
10. Id. at 167; see also id. at 159.
11. Id. at 103.
12. Id. at 205.
13. See id. at 193.
14. See, e.g., 2 PUFENDORF, supra note 5, at 89. For, if you have removed God from the function of administering justice, all the efficacy of . . . pacts, to the observance of which one of the contracting parties is not able to compel the other by force, will immediately expire, and everyone will measure justice by his own particular advantage. And assuredly, if we are willing to confess the truth, once the fear of divine vengeance has been removed, there appears no sufficient reason why I should be at all obligated, after the conditions governing my advantage have once changed, to furnish that thing, for the furnishing of which to the second party I had bound myself while my interests led in that direction; that is, of course, if I have to fear no real evil, at least from any man, in consequence of that act. Id.
15. LOCKE, supra note 6, at 167; see also id. at 164-66 ("[P]atet . . . posse homines a rebus sensibilibus colligere superiorem esse aliquem potentem sapientemque qui in homines ipsos jus habet et imperium. Quis enim negabit lutum figuli voluntati esse subjectum, testamque eadem manu qua formata est.") (emphasis added).
16. See id. at 178-79 (This passage was deleted by Locke in 1664).
17. See JOHN FINNIS, NATURAL LAW AND NATURAL RIGHTS 348-49 (1980).
18. See KELSEN, supra note 4, at 189-93, 211-51.
19. See id. at 6 ("In general terms: No Ought without a will (even if it is only fictitious).").
20. See, e.g., JOSEPH RAZ, ETHICS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 190-91 (1994).
21. See John Finnis, The Truth in Legal Positivism, in THE AUTONOMY OF LAW 195-214 (Robert P. George ed., 1996).
22. See John Finnis, The Fairy Tale's Moral, 115 LAW Q. REV. 170, 174-75 (1999).
23. See PLATO, GORGIAS; THOMAS AQUINAS, SUMMA THEOLOGIAE I-II Prologue; JOHN FINNIS, AQUINAS 20, 124-25 (1998).
24. See PLATO, GORGIAS; THOMAS AQUINAS, SUMMA THEOLOGIAE I-II Prologue; JOHN FINNIS, AQUINAS 20, 124-25 (1998).
25. See FINNIS, supra note 17, at 3-22.
26. For an example of a dispute about which of these alternatives is right, see Ronald Dworkin, A Reply by Ronald Dworkin, in RONALD DWORKIN AND CONTEMPORARY JURISPRUDENCE 261 (Marshall Cohen ed., 1984), and Joseph Raz, Legal Principles and the Limits of the Law, in RONALD DWORKIN AND CONTEMPORARY JURISPRUDENCE 84-85.
27. For an example of a dispute about which of these alternatives is right, see Ronald Dworkin, A Reply by Ronald Dworkin, in RONALD DWORKIN AND CONTEMPORARY JURISPRUDENCE 261 (Marshall Cohen ed., 1984), and Joseph Raz, Legal Principles and the Limits of the Law, in RONALD DWORKIN AND CONTEMPORARY JURISPRUDENCE 84-85.
28. That is, since Jeremy Bentham. See JEREMY BENTHAM, A COMMENT ON THE COMMENTARIES AND A FRAGMENT ON GOVERNMENT (J.H. Burns & H.L.A. Hart eds., Humanities Press 1977) (1776).
29. Jules L. Coleman & Brian Leiter, Legal Positivism, in A COMPANION TO PHILOSOPHY OF LAW AND LEGAL THEORY 241, 241 (Dennis Patterson ed., 1996). They add one other "central belief" and one further "commitment": (i) "what counts as law in any particular society is fundamentally a matter of social fact or convention ('the social thesis')." Id. The classical natural law theorist will comment that this is equivocal between (a) the tautologous proposition that what is counted as law, in a particular society, is counted as law in that society and (b) the false proposition that what counts as law for fully reasonable persons (e.g., fully reasonable judges) deliberating about their responsibilities is all and only what is counted as law by others in that society - false because ought (e.g., the ought of reasonable responsibility) is not entailed by is; (ii) "a commitment to the idea that the phenomena comprising the domain at issue (for example, law . . .) must be accessible to the human mind"; classical natural law theory fully shares this commitment, since it defines natural law as principles accessible to the human mind, and positive law as rules devised by human minds. 28 See Finnis, supra note 21, at 203-04.
30. Coleman & Leiter, supra note 27, at 244.
31. HANS KELSEN, GENERAL THEORY OF LAW AND STATE 416-17 (Anders Wedberg trans., Harvard Univ. Press 1945).
32. See FINNIS, supra note 17, at 28.
33. Coleman & Leiter, supra note 27, at 243 (emphasis added). For "dictates" read directive or prescription (enactment, judicial judgement, etc.). See FINNIS, supra note 23, at 256 n.4.
34. Coleman & Leiter, supra note 27, at 248.
35. Id. at 243.
36. Id. at 248.
37. Id.
38. See H.L.A. HART, ESSAYS ON BENTHAM: STUDIES IN JURISPRUDENCE AND POLITICAL THEORY 243-68 (1982).
39. JOHN AUSTIN, THE PROVINCE OF JURISPRUDENCE DETERMINED 185 (H.L.A. Hart ed., Noonday Press 1954) (1832); see also FINNIS, supra note 23, at 355.