0000000000026654
AUTHOR
Bruno Celano
Constitutive Rules: The Symbolization Account
Our aim is to provide an account of constitutive rules in terms of (1) the acceptance of regulative norms, and (2) a cognitive process we call “symbolization” (in an altogether different sense from what J. R. Searle means by this word). We claim, first, that institutional facts à la Searle boil down to facts concerning the collective acceptance of regulative norms in a given community. This, however, does not exhaust what institutional facts are. There is a residue, symbolization. Symbolization, as we understand it, involves a transfer of cognitive models from one domain to another. We introduce this notion by exploring different sorts of games, taking our cue from games of pretend play. In…
Principi, regole, autorità. Considerazioni su M. Atienza, J. Ruiz Manero, Illeciti atipici
SOMMARIO: 1. Esistono illeciti atipici? - 2. Principi giuridici o principi morali? - 3. Autorità (il problema della determinazione).
Norma giuridica
Defensa y equilibrio. Sobre la posibilidad de revisiones estabiles
Diritti, principi e valori nello Stato costituzionale di diritto: tre ipotesi di ricostruzione
Gli ordinamenti giuridici degli odierni Stati costituzionali di diritto (intendo con questa locuzione la forma tipica che lo Stato di diritto ha assunto in gran parte dei paesi dell’Occidente nel secondo dopoguerra) presentano caratteristiche peculiari, attinenti sia al loro contenuto, sia alla loro struttura. Negli Stati costituzionali di diritto alla sommità dell’ordinamento giuridico si trova una costituzione scritta, rigida, garantita e lunga. Costituzioni siffatte incorporano (ovvero, rinviano a) diritti, principi e valori etici . E’ questa una prima importante caratteristica, attinente al contenuto, degli ordinamenti giuridici in questione.
Presentazione a Diritti umani fra norme, fatti e retorica
La pratica dei diritti umani non ha una dimensione unitaria, ma frastagliata su diversi livelli: costruzioni normative astratte, dottrinali e positive; pratiche discorsive concrete, più o meno istituzionalizzate; strutture motivazionali degli agenti rilevanti; assetti giuridici e sociali effettivi. Conoscere la pratica dei diritti umani significa essere consapevoli dei loro diversi livelli di esistenza, e, a volte, della abissale distanza che separa costruzioni normative, retoriche e ideologiche, e i fatti. Questa distanza è il filo conduttore dei contributi raccolti in questa parte monografica.
L’eguaglianza nella cultura giuridico-politica occidentale moderna. Una mappa concettuale
Multiculturalismo liberale, neutralità e Rule of Law
Most contemporary liberal theories of justice agree that principles of justice should be neutral between citizens’ conceptions of the good life. In this essay, I assume that the liberal doctrine of state neutrality can somehow be defended against its critics. y first aim is to show that a certain connection holds between liberal neutrality, suitably understood, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the Rule of Law. By the ‘Rule of Law’ I mean, as has now become usual among legal theorists, a set of formal and institutional features the law may possess in varying degrees. These features define an ideal, which laws have traditionally been expected to live up to. It is, under many respects,…
¿Podemos elegir entre Particularismo y Generalismo?
La antítesis entre particularismo y universalismo es uno de los temas más discutidos en la filosofía práctica anglosajona de los últimos años. Pero, ¿de qué tipo de antítesis se trata? Es decir, ¿que género de alternativa constituye la que media entre particularismo y universalismo? Discutiré este problema tomando como punto de partida las tesis sostenidas por Cristina Redondo.
Ragionamento giuridico: tre questioni chiave, e cosa (non) può fare la filosofia al riguardo
Nell'articolo sono introdotte e specificate tre questioni ritenute cruciali per la comprensione dei problemi posti dall’interpretazione giuridica e, in genere, dal ragionamento giuridico. In primo luogo: che ne è dell’interpretazione degli artefatti culturali e linguistici entro il quadro dei giochi interpretativi non cooperativi? In secondo luogo: come può costituire un’attività coerente un gioco nel quale l’arbitro decide in modo definitivo se le regole che definiscono il gioco stesso sono state rispettate? E infine: ammesso che regole e principi giuridici siano solitamente, sebbene implicitamente, ritenuti defettibili alla luce di considerazioni morali, che struttura hanno le ragioni che…
Publicidad y Rule of Law
By the ‘Rule of Law’ I mean a set of formal and institutional features the law may possess in varying degrees. These features define an ideal, which laws have traditionally been expected to live up to. One of these features is publicity. Part of what constitutes the Rule of Law is the requirement that the laws should be public. This is the subject of this paper. When it is claimed that the Rule of Law requires that the laws should be public, what is to be understood by this claim? My main claim is that the Rule of Law requirement of publicity is best understood in terms of the notion of common, or mutual, knowledge. When it is required that the laws should be public, what should be meant by…
Preconvenciones: un fragmento del Trasfondo
Abstract, In this paper I argue that there exist conventions of a peculiar sort, which are neither norms nor regularities of behaviour, partaking of both. I proceed as follows. After a sketchy analysis of the meaning of ‘convention’, I give some examples of the kind of phenomena I have in mind: bodily skills, know-how, taste and style, habitus (P. Bourdieu), “disciplines” (M. Foucault). Then I group some arguments supporting my claim: (i) considerations about the identity conditions of precedents (D. Lewis) and about the projectibility of predicates in inductive inference generally (N. Goodman); (ii) thoughts about rule-following (L. Wittgenstein); (iii) an examination of some of J. R. Sear…
Presentazione a I limiti dei diritti
Diritti, principi e valori nello Stato costituzionale di diritto: tre ipotesi di ricostruzione
Due problemi aperti della teoria dell’interpretazione giuridica
In questo saggio cerco di isolare e di definire con precisione – non di risolvere – due problemi che toccano specificamente, anche se non in via esclusiva, l’interpretazione del diritto. Il primo deriva dalla circostanza seguente: l’uso che del linguaggio viene fatto nella pratica discorsiva del diritto si discosta, sotto due aspetti cruciali, dall’uso che del linguaggio viene fatto nella comunicazione ordinaria– e, di conseguenza, l’interpretazione del diritto si differenzia dall’interpretazione conversazionale. (1) Nel diritto, spesso, non c’è alcun emittente precisamente identificabile cui possa essere imputata un’intenzione comunicativa. (2) Nella pratica discorsiva del diritto, in molt…
Ragione pubblica e ideologia
Le società nordoccidentali contemporanee - in particolare, la società europea - sono società pluralistiche: sono caratterizzate da un marcato pluralismo ideologico, culturale, etico, religioso, degli interessi, dei desideri e dei piaceri. Questo è un dato di fatto: un dato che molti apprendisti stregoni deplorano, apparentemente inconsapevoli del fatto che la sua denegazione è la via maestra verso la violenza endemica e incontrollata, ma che qui sarà, per l’appunto, assunto come un dato ineludibile. Il pluralismo, nelle sue diverse forme, genera disaccordi, tensioni, dissidi. Come affrontare questi disaccordi? E’ possibile evitare che il disaccordo generi conflitti intrattabili, o violenti?…
Hart’s Blind Spot. Il tassello mancante in Th,e Concept of Law
At the beginning of The Concept of Law Hart suggests a mistaken assimilation between conduct that is ‘non-optional’ and conduct that is ‘obligatory’ (i.e,. conduct that is either coerced or subject to an obligation). This suggested assimilation vitiates the argument of the whole book, leading Hart to neglect the different ways in which the law typically tracks, corroborates or constitutes power relations. It is true that, famously, attention is paid, in The Concept of Law, to normative, legal powers. Brute social power, and law’s relation to it—the role of law as a cog in the workings of social powers—, however, are largely overlooked. This is. in a way, Hart’s blind spot. I list some of th…
La normatividad nomólogica de Paulson
In some of his recent work Stanley Paulson puts forward a number of important and ambitious exegetical claims about Hans Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law. Some of these claims are not novel in Paulson’s rich Kelsenian corpus. But, taken together, these claims now amount to the main outlines of a fully-fledged interpretation of the theoretical foundations of the Pure Theory of Law. Paulson holds that (1) contrary to what Joseph Raz, Carlos S. Nino and many others have claimed, there is, in the Pure Theory of Law, no “justified normativity” thesis. Kelsenian normativity is, rather, “nomological” normativity. (2) ‘Validity’ is not, in the Pure Theory of Law, a matter of the reasons norm-subjects ma…
True Exceptions:Defeasibility and Particularism
Sometimes, kinds of cases which do in fact fall under the antecedent of a conditional norm are reckoned recalcitrant. I.e., although they fall under the antecedent of the norm we do not wish to allow the consequence to follow. In such cases, we sometimes say that we are abandoning, or discarding, the norm. We concede, that is, that the alleged norm was wrong (or, if you wish, that it was no norm at all). At other times, however, it is claimed that the norm is a defeasible one. Granted, the case at hand is one of those in which the norm is defeated; but this, it is implied, does not amount to a wholesale abandonment of the norm itself. Being defeasible, the norm somehow survives the impact o…
Derecho, planes y racionalidad práctica
There is, according to many contemporary jurisprudential theories, a tight relationship between law and practical rationality: the law gives us, or at least it purports to give us, reasons for action. In his book, Legality (2011), Scott J. Shapiro puts forward what at first glance appears to be a new view in this vein. Shapiro calls it the “Planning Theory” of law; it provides an account of what the law is in terms of a particular kind of reasons: plans (a notion moulded, in his work in the philosophy of action, by Michael E. Bratman). In this paper, I provide a reconstruction of the Planning Theory as a view of the relationships between law and practical rationality, and I point to some fu…
¿Podemos eligir entre particularismo y universalismo?
L’antitesi fra particolarismo e generalismo (o universalismo) è uno dei temi più discussi nella filosofia pratica anglosassone degli ultimi anni. Ma di che genere di antitesi si tratta? Ossia, che genere di alternativa è l’alternativa fra particolarismo e generalismo?
Liberal Multiculturalism, neutrality and the Rule of Law
Most contemporary liberal theories of justice agree that principles of justice should be neutral between citizens’ conceptions of the good life. In this essay, I assume that the liberal doctrine of state neutrality can somehow be defended against its critics. y first aim is to show that a certain connection holds between liberal neutrality, suitably understood, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the Rule of Law. By the ‘Rule of Law’ I mean, as has now become usual among legal theorists, a set of formal and institutional features the law may possess in varying degrees. These features define an ideal, which laws have traditionally been expected to live up to. It is, under many respects,…
Pre-conventions. A fragment of the Background
In this paper I argue that there exist conventions of a peculiar sort which are neither norms nor regularities of behaviour, partaking of both. I proceed as follows. After a brief analysis of the meaning of ‘convention’, I give some examples of the kind of phenomena I have in mind: bodily skills, know-how, taste and style, habitus (P. Bourdieu), “disciplines” (M. Foucault). Then I group some arguments supporting my claim: (i) considerations about the identity conditions of precedents (D. Lewis) and about the projectibility of predicates in inductive inference generally (N. Goodman); (ii) thoughts about rule-following (L. Wittgenstein); (iii) an examination of some of J. R. Searle’s ideas ab…
Apologia del libero mercato
In a dusty square of an ancient neighborhood of Palermo there is a miserable second-hand market, called “mercato dell’Albergheria. Merchandise sold is mainly stuff collected from garbage. Those who sell and buy are some of the poorest and most marginalized among urban population, so none of the sellers has a permission or pays any tax. Nevertheless, Albergheria market had existed undisturbed for about twenty years. It therefore seems to be an actualization of the free market ideal. The State is not there: neither to give, nor to require. In the main square, where the market is, a peculiar coincidence occurs: one of the buildings, an ex-cinema, is now a lecture-hall of the Law Department of …
Stato di diritto
I diritti nello Stato costituzionale
Questo libro ha due obiettivi. In primo luogo, fornire un quadro complessivo dell’insieme dei diritti fondamentali – in generale, dei diritti, principi e valori costituzionalmente sanciti – negli odierni Stati costituzionali, e dei problemi concettuali, teorici e normativi che essi suscitano. In secondo luogo, difendere una particolare visione di questo insieme. Una visione, per dirla in due battute, secondo la quale diritti, principi e valori sanciti dalle costituzioni contemporanee sono eterogenei, largamente indeterminati, sovente confliggenti o reciprocamente incommensurabili; cosa che rende necessari, in sede di interpretazione e applicazione, determinazione, trade-offs, e bilanciament…
Quatro temas kelsenianos
Hart’s blind spot. The missing piece in The Concept of Law
Al inicio de El Concepto de Derecho, Hart sugiere una asimilación errónea entre conducta que es «no opcional» y conducta que es «obligatoria» (i. e. conducta que o es forzada o sometida a una obligación). Esta asimilación vicia el argumento del libro en su conjunto, llevándole a Hart a descuidar las diferentes vías en las que el derecho monitorea, corrobora o constituye relaciones de poder. Es cierto y evidente que en The Concept of Law la atención se dedica a los poderes normativos, legales. Sin embargo, el poder social bruto, y las relaciones del derecho con él —el papel del derecho como una pieza en la maquinaria de los poderes sociales— están ampliamente ignorados. Éste es, de alguna ma…
Decisión judicial y verdad. Algunas consideraciones
Exploring the Background: Puzzles, Afterthoughts, and Replies
In this paper I review the comments, and reply to the objections, put forward in the commentaries to my essay “Pre-conventions. A fragment of the Background”, published in issues n. 30 and 33 of Revus – Journal for Constitutional Theory and Philosophy of Law. My remarks fall under the following headings: 1. The social dimension of pre-conventions; 2. Pre-conventions and ordinary habits and dispositions; 3. Whether my examples are mistaken; 4. Reasons and causes; 5. Normative facts; 6. Whether abstract entities can be causes; 7. Are pre-conventions conditions of Lewis-conventions? 8. What can pre-conventions do for legal theory? 9. Whether I discharged my argumentative burdens. Raziskovanje …
Diritti fondamentali e poteri di determinazionbe nello Stato costituzionale di diritto
Bills of rights in contemporary constitutional democracies lend themselves to a pluralistic, rather than monistic or "irenistic", conception. Constitutional rights, principles, and values often conflict; they are plural, indeterminate, incommensurable. Thus, in constitutional democracies "powers of determination" (i.e., institutions whose task is to balance constitutional rights and values in their application to specific kinds of cases) are needed. Are powers of determination (e.g. judicial review of legislation, or constitutional amending by democratic assemblies) compatible with the ambitions of contemporary constitutionalism?
Rule of Law y particularismo ético
Questo scritto è dedicato alla trattazione del problema se l’ideale del Rule of Law sia compatibile con il particolarismo etico. Sostengo che, nonostante l’apparenza, la risposta a questa domanda è affermativa. Prima di presentare i miei argomenti a favore di questa tesi è necessario (i) chiarire che cosa intendo per ‘Rule of Law’ e ‘particolarismo etico’ (parr. 2 e 3); (ii) spiegare perché mai ci si dovrebbe porre l’interrogativo se il Rule of Law sia o no compatibile con il particolarismo etico (par. 4); e infine (iii) chiarire perché la risposta a questo interrogativo sia apparentemente negativa (par. 4). A questo punto, presento i miei argomenti – tre – a sostegno della tesi della compa…
Legal reasoning: three key issues, and what philosophy can(not) do about them
Three issues are, I think, crucial to our understanding of legal interpretation and legal reasoning generally. First, how does the interpretation of cultural, linguistic artifacts fare within non-cooperative interpretive games (sect. 3)? Second, how can a game in which the pronouncements of the umpire are final as to whether the rules defining the game itself have been complied with--how can such a game be a coherent enterprise at all (sect. 4)? Finally, granted that legal rules and principles are usually, albeit implicitly, regarded as defeasible in the light of moral considerations, what is the structure of the reasons leading, in such cases, to their revision (sect. 5)? I shall only sket…
What Can Plans Do for Legal Theory?
In his book, Legality (2011), Scott Shapiro puts forward what he claims to be "a new, and hopefully better" (better, namely, than the ones given so far) answer to "the overarching question of ‘What is law?’ - The central claim of this new account - the "Planning Thesis" - is that "legal activity is a form of social planning" -. "Legal institutions plan for the communities over which they claim authority, both by telling members what they may or may not do, and by identifying those who are entitled to affect what others may or may not do. Following this claim, legal rules are themselves generalized plans, or planlike norms, issued by those who are authorized to plan for others. And adjudicat…
Pre-convenzioni: un frammento dello Sfondo
In this paper I argue that there exist conventions of a peculiar sort, which are neither norms nor regularities of behaviour, partaking of both. I proceed as follows. After a sketchy analysis of the meaning of ‘convention’, I give some examples of the kind of phenomena I have in mind: bodily skills, know-how, taste and style, habitus (P. Bourdieu), «disciplines» (M. Foucault). Then I group some arguments supporting my claim: (i) considerations about the identity conditions of precedents (D. Lewis) and about the projectibility of predicates in inductive inference generally (N. Goodman); (ii) thoughts about rule-following (L. Wittgenstein); (iii) an examination of some of J. R. Searle’s ideas…
Rule of Law e particolarismo etico
Questo scritto è dedicato alla trattazione del problema se l’ideale del Rule of Law sia compatibile con il particolarismo etico. Sostengo che, nonostante l’apparenza, la risposta a questa domanda è affermativa. Prima di presentare i miei argomenti a favore di questa tesi è necessario (i) chiarire che cosa intendo per ‘Rule of Law’ e ‘particolarismo etico’ (parr. 2 e 3); (ii) spiegare perché mai ci si dovrebbe porre l’interrogativo se il Rule of Law sia o no compatibile con il particolarismo etico (par. 4); e infine (iii) chiarire perché la risposta a questo interrogativo sia apparentemente negativa (par. 4). A questo punto, presento i miei argomenti – tre – a sostegno della tesi della compa…
Law as Power: Two Rule of Law Requirements
Abstract. ‘Law as power’ is a neglected topic in contemporary analytical jurisprudence. Attention has been paid, from Hart (and Kelsen) onwards, to normative powers. ‘Brute’ social power, however, and law’s relation to it, are, in post-Hartian jurisprudence, largely overlooked. The subject of this paper is the shape social power takes when the rule of the law is envisaged as an ethico-political ideal—I discuss, that is, the Rule of Law as a specific mode of the exercise of social power, and what is valuable in it. I concentrate on two Rule of Law requirements, consistency (i.e., the avoidance of conflicts) and compliability (i.e., conformity to the ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ principle). They con…
Derrotabilidad y ponderación. Sobre la posibilidad de revisiones estables
Derecho, justicia, razones. Ensayos 2000-2007
Traduzione in castigliano di saggi pubblicati fra il 2000 e il 2007.
Altrimenti si andrebbe all’infinito: un topos dell’argomentazione metafisica
Possiamo scegliere fra particolarismo e generalismo?
Fatti istituzionali, consuetudini, convenzioni
Raccolta di saggi pubblicati fra il 1995 e il 2003, con due inediti e una Premessa
Consuetudine: un’analisi concettuale
In civil law systems, statutes and other legal texts sometimes refer to ‘custom’. In international law, it is undisputed that ‘custom’, alongside with treaties or conventions, is one of the main legal sources. The bulk of this paper is devoted to an attempt at answering a single, simple question: what is custom? What is it that statutes and other legal materials refer to, when they refer to ‘custom’? In answering this question the beginning of wisdom is to realize that there is no single, unique concept custom. ‘Custom’ designates different phenomena, which should be carefully distinguished. It is, then, possible to mould several concepts of custom, and customary rule. In the first, longer …
Law, Plans and Practical Rartionality
There is, according to many contemporary jurisprudential theories, a tight relationship between law and practical rationality: the law gives us, or at least it purports to give us, reasons for action. In his book, Legality (2011), Scott J. Shapiro puts forward what at first glance appears to be a new view in this vein. Shapiro calls it the “Planning Theory” of law; it provides an account of what the law is in terms of a particular kind of reasons: plans (a notion moulded, in his work in the philosophy of action, by Michael E. Bratman). In this paper, I provide a reconstruction of the Planning Theory as a view of the relationships between law and practical rationality, and I point to some fu…
Paulson's Nomological Normativity
In some of his recent work Stanley Paulson puts forward a number of important and ambitious exegetical claims about Hans Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law. Some of these claims are not novel in Paulson’s rich Kelsenian corpus. But, taken together, these claims now amount to the main outlines of a fully-fledged interpretation of the theoretical foundations of the Pure Theory of Law. Paulson holds that (1) contrary to what Joseph Raz, Carlos S. Nino and many others have claimed, there is, in the Pure Theory of Law, no “justified normativity” thesis. Kelsenian normativity is, rather, “nomological” normativity. (2) ‘Validity’ is not, in the Pure Theory of Law, a matter of the reasons norm-subjects ma…
Costituzione italiana e pluralismo religioso
Giustizia e sorte. Alle radici della giustizia come equità
Giusnaturalismo, positivismo giuridico e pluralismo etico
Sosterrò che il diritto, pur essendo necessariamente espressione di valori e principi etici oggettivi, è un artefatto umano. Più precisamente, il mio intento è tracciare le linee essenziali di una particolare posizione teorica, che implica la conclusione appena enunciata. Una difesa di questa posizione non è, qui, il mio obiettivo principale. Ciò che mi interessa mettere in luce è, anzitutto, la possibilità di costruirla. La posizione che intendo delineare nasce dalla combinazione di tre ingredienti. In primo luogo, una particolare forma di giusnaturalismo - una particolare versione della dottrina del diritto naturale. In secondo luogo, una concezione nomodinamica del diritto (chiarirò più …
POSITIVISMO JURÍDICO NORMATIVO, NEUTRALIDAD Y ESTADO DE DERECHO
Usually, in jurisprudential debates what is discussed under the rubric of ‘neutrality’ is the claim that jurisprudence is (or at least can, and should be) a conceptual, or descriptive - thus, non-normative, or morally neutral - inquiry. I discuss neutrality in an altogether different sense, namely, neutrality as an ethico-political ideal the law should meet. My starting point is normative legal positivism, or the claim that it is a good and desirable thing that the laws have easily identifiable, readily accessible, as far as possible non-controversial social sources. What justifies normative legal positivism, I claim, is the value - or the ideal - of neutrality, suitably understood. I.e., w…
Universalità dei diritti umani?
Luck egalitarianism, responsabilità e identità personale
In recent times, "luck egalitarianism" - the claim that neutralizing the effects of brute luck is the main aim of egalitarian justice - has been the object of serious criticism, both on normative and on metaphysical grounds. Objections of the first kind do indeed prove well-grounded. Luck egalitarianism misleadingly focuses on the distribution of resources; egalitarianism, though, should be understood as primarily concerned with social and political standing. It can be shown, however, that the core of luck egalitarian views - the argument from the "natural lottery" - can be dissociated from the project of a fully-fledged conception of equality; and that it does indeed provide a powerful, in…
La forza dell’argomento migliore
Normative Legal Positivism, Neutrality, and the Rule of Law
Usually, in jurisprudential debates what is discussed under the rubric of ‘neutrality’ is the claim that jurisprudence is (or at least can, and should be) a conceptual, or descriptive - thus, non-normative, or morally neutral - inquiry. I discuss neutrality in an altogether different sense, namely, neutrality as an ethico-political ideal the law should meet. My starting point is normative legal positivism, or the claim that it is a good and desirable thing that the laws have easily identifiable, readily accessible, as far as possible non-controversial social sources. What justifies normative legal positivism, I claim, is the value - or the ideal - of neutrality, suitably understood. I.e., w…
Reglas constitutivas: desde el paradima lógico-lingüístico al paradigma cognitivo
In this chapter, starting from a criticism of J.R. Searle's conception of institutional reality, we develop a 'cognitive' interpretation of constitutive rules.
Pluralismo etico, particolarismo e caratterizzazioni di desiderabilità: il modello triadico
Tratterò dell'antitesi fra particolarismo e generalismo. Particolarismo e generalismo saranno qui considerati come due diverse visioni del ragionamento pratico (non, specificamente, del ragionamento morale; utilizzerò il termine 'etica' per designare, in modo indifferenziato, il dominio del ragionamento pratico, senza restrizioni)