Search results for "Legal formalism"
showing 5 items of 5 documents
On the Role of Inequalities in Legal Systems: A Tocquevilian View
2008
The present paper proposes to interpret the differences in legal systems between common-law and civil-law nations as arising from the importance given to adjudication in comparison with statute laws. It focuses on the relative costs of legal change by adjudication (case law development) when compared with legislation (statutory law development). The main argument is that the public concern with equality is a major determinant of the relative cost of adjudication in a legal system. We develop a model of the legal process that illustrates Tocqueville's fundamental intuition with regard to the uniformity of legal rules, and as a consequences, the relative importance of adjudication and legisla…
La actualidad de la equidad de Aristóteles. Doce tesis antiformalistas sobre el derecho y la función judicial
2014
En este trabajo se propone una lectura de la teoría aristotélica de la equidad desde los presupuestos de un enfoque argumentativo del derecho. Después de ofrecer una contextualización de la filosofía del derecho de Aristóteles en el marco de su filosofía moral (teoría de la virtud) y política (teoría del Estado), se extraen las implicaciones de la equidad para la práctica de la jurisdicción en forma de doce tesis críticas del formalismo jurídico. This paper purports an interpretation of the Aristotelian theory of equity from the point of view of an argumentative approach to law. Once the main ideas of the legal philosophy of Aristotle are framed in the context of his moral and political phi…
Inclusive Legal Positivism, Legal Interpretation, and Value-Judgments
2009
In this paper I put forward some arguments in defence of inclusive legal positivism. The general thesis that I defend is that inclusive positivism represents a more fruitful and interesting research program than that proposed by exclusive positivism. I introduce two arguments connected with legal interpretation in favour of my thesis. However, my opinion is that inclusive positivism does not sufficiently succeed in estranging itself from the more traditional legal positivist conceptions. This is the case, for instance, with regard to the value-freedom principle, which is commonly accepted by inclusive positivist scholars. In contrast with this approach, I try to show, in the concluding sect…
Positivism, Legal Validity, and the Separation of Law and Morals
2014
The essay discusses the import of the separability thesis both for legal positivism and for contemporary legal practice. First, the place of the separability thesis in legal positivism will be explored, distinguishing between “standard positivism” and “post-Hartian positivism.” Then I will consider various kinds of relations between law and morality that are worthy of jurisprudential interest, and explore, from a positivist point of view, what kind of relations between law and morality must be rejected, what kind of such relations should be taken into account, and what kind of such relations are indeed of no import at all. The upshot of this analysis consists in highlighting the distinction…
Neil MacCormick's Second Thoughts on Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory. A Defence of the Original View
2011
This paper offers a diachronic reconstruction of MacCormick's theory of law and legal argumentation: In particular, two related points will be highlighted in which the difference between the perspective upheld in Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory and the later writings is particularly marked. The first point concerns MacCormick's gradual break with legal positivism, and more specifically the thesis that the implicit pretension to justice of law proves legal positivism false in all its different versions. The second point concerns MacCormick's acceptance of the one-right-answer thesis and the consequent thinning of the differences between MacCormick's theory of legal reasoning and that of Ron…