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What is law? The usual answer is that the law is a system of norms. But this answer gives us at best half of the story. The law is a way of relating to one another. We do not do this as lovers or friends and not as people who are interested in obtaining guidance from moral insight. In a legal context, we are cast as 'character masks' (Marx), for example, as 'buyer' and 'seller' or 'landlord' and 'tenant'. We expect to have our claims respected simply because the law has given us rights. We do not want to give any other reason for our behavior than the fact that we have a legal right. Backing rights up with coercive threats indicates that we are willing to accept legal obligations unwillingly. This book offers a conceptual reconstruction of the legal relation on the basis of a critique of legal positivism.
List of contents
Introduction. The pursuit of theory; 1. Late legal positivism; 2. Legality and irony; 3. Legal science and the common law; 4. The legal relation; 5. Equality, freedom and dignity; 6. The quest for agency.
About the author
Alexander Somek is Professor of Legal Philosophy at Universität Wien, Austria and Global Affiliated Professor of Law at the University of Iowa, where he previously held the position of the Charles E. Floete Chair in Law. He has been a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, a LAPA fellow, and visiting professor at Princeton University, New Jersey, and at the London School of Economics. He is the author of eleven books.
Summary
The law is a way of relating to one another. In a legal context, we expect to have our claims respected simply because we have a legal right. This book offers a conceptual reconstruction of the legal relation on the basis of a critique of legal positivism.
