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(2011) Law, truth, and reason, Dordrecht, Springer.

Law and metaphysics

Raimo Siltala

pp. 255-270

Some key issues of a legal metaphysics are finally addressed. The semantic qualities of a legal assertion on how to construct and read the law, i.e. its truth-value (reference/Frege; extension/Carnap) and specific meaning-content (sense/Frege; intension/Carnap), is defined as conditional upon, and determined by, the particular frame of legal analysis adopted. The ontological edifice of law, to the effect of "what there is' in the legal universe, consists of three elements: the logical constitution, normative ontology, and structural axiology of law. They provide for the constitutive elements of the domain of law, with reference to (a) legal concepts and their systemic relations, (b) legal rules and legal principles, and (c) societal values and collective goals under Jerzy Wróblewski's three ideologies of judicial decision-making. A systemic order of things is thought to prevail among the rules and principles of law of a given legal system, as judged in light of Carlos Alchourrón's and Eugenio Bulygin's notion of (the process of) legal systematization and (the outcome of) legal systematics. According to those two Argentinian scholars, legal systematization signifies a reformulation of the basic normative system that was initially laid down by the legislator: "The reformulation of a system consists in the replacement of the basis by a new one, that is less extensive, more general and normatively equivalent." The requirement of normative equivalence between the two normative systems boils down to the requirement that the same normative consequences be attached to the same facts under both normative systems. Alchourrón's and Bulygin's notion of legal systematization is elaborated with Rudolf Carnap's semantics: two normative systems are equivalent, if and only if they are equivalent in extension and equivalent in intension. They are equivalent in extension, if and only if they obtain the same truth-value on the same values of variables; and they are equivalent in intension, if and only if they produce the same set of meaning-contents on the same values of variables. The requirement of normative equivalence, though valid from the point of view of logic, will not fully satisfy or exhaust the epistemic needs and expectations held by the legal profession vis-à-vis legal systematics. Therefore, a substantive notion of (the process of) legal systematization and (the outcome of) legal systematics is given by locking up a complex priority order among the rule/rule, principle/principle, and rule/principle combinations in a legal system. Textual coherence, institutional authorities, and legal community are identified as the three constituents of legal deliberation under Wróblewski's ideology of legal and rational judicial decision-making, as effected in various configurations under the six frames of legal analysis discerned under it. Finally, the future of analytical jurisprudence is viewed in light of the recent changes in society and the inherent potential of the analytical approach to encompass different theories, models, or approaches of law for a value-free, ideologically neutral judgment.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-1872-2_13

Full citation:

Siltala, R. (2011). Law and metaphysics, in Law, truth, and reason, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 255-270.

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