Articles – Page 4

The Professor, the Political Activist, and the Professional on the Tightropes of Culture Wars: Stanley Fish’s Versions of Academic Freedom

Dr Jakub Łakomy

University of Wrocław

English abstract: Today, academic freedom is increasingly contested amid intensifying culture wars and political polarisation, both within and beyond university walls. Traditional liberal and critical defences of academic freedom—grounded in universal rights, public good, or transformative critique – appear conceptually fragile and normatively overstretched. This paper reconstructs and critically evaluates Stanley Fish’s deflationary and professionalist conception of academic freedom, as developed in Versions of Academic Freedom. Drawing on Fish’s neopragmatist and anti-foundationalist framework, the paper argues that academic freedom cannot be defended by appealing to abstract ideals or external social functions, but only by reference to the immanent logic of disciplinary practice. Fish’s model posits that academic freedom is the limited freedom to perform professional tasks – teaching and research – according to internal standards of scholarly rigour, not a licence for personal expression or political activism. While his approach offers a coherent and context-sensitive alternative to foundationalist accounts, the paper argues that it is insufficient to address the ethical and political challenges of contemporary academia. The paper proposes that defending academic freedom today requires both Fish’s realism about professional constraints and a critical awareness of the political forces shaping knowledge production – an uncomfortable balancing act on the tightrope of post-foundational thought.

Keywords: academic freedom, professionalism, neopragmatism.

Language: English

Published: Number 2(43)/2025, pp. 136-153.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.136

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Number of downloads: 169

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The judge as a promoter of peace

Dr hab. Adam Zienkiewicz, prof. UWM

University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn

English abstract: The principal aim of this text is to draw attention to the singular role of a “promoter of peace”, which may be fulfilled nowadays both by a lawyer who provides legal assistance to a client and a judge. Discussing the matter from the standpoint of legal theory, the study will thus first examine the difference between judicial adjudication of disputes and their resolution, including methods based on the practice of peacemaking, which promotes peaceful interpersonal relations and positive personal transformation of the parties to disputes to establish between them a state known as positive peace. Subsequently, a dogmatic-legal analysis will seek to identify selected applicable regulations which offer the possibility of implementing, on the initiative or with the assistance of a judge, amicable modes of resolving legal disputes pending before a Polish civil court. In the final part of the study, the domestic normative perspective in the field of civil law will be supplemented with major model assumptions and objectives of a special type of court, a so-called Problem-Solving Court (developing especially in the USA), where the perpetrator of an offence who is subject to conventional court proceedings, is given an additional opportunity to effectively counter the causes of lawbreaking and conflicts with members of the community (e.g., ones stemming from drug or alcohol addiction abuse or mental disorders), based on the so-called problem-solving program tailored to the individual, which is coordinated by the judge and implemented by an interdisciplinary team of experts. These deliberations lead to the conclusion that the catalogue of legislative solutions in this respect is gradually expanding, creating a real opportunity to choose and apply various conciliatory methods of managing legal disputes, also on the initiative or with the active participation of the judge, who promotes the restoration of peaceful social relations.

Keywords: judge, peacemaker, Alternative Dispute Resolution, problem-solving court

Language: English

Published: Number 2(43)/2025, pp. 120-135.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.120

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Number of downloads: 225

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Critical Approaches to International Law according to China Miéville and Bhupinder S. Chimni

Dr hab. Tomasz Srogosz, prof. UKEN

University of the National Education Commission in Kraków

English abstract: Research purpose: The aim of the article is to assess the usefulness of Marxist approaches to international law in the discussion on the existing and developing international legal order. It is a proposal to enrich the theoretical foundations of the discourse on international law that takes place within the walls of Polish scientific and academic centres. Questions arise as to whether Marxist approaches to the law of nations solve the problem of the possibility of changes taking into account the positions of the “ordinary people”, i.e., the Marxian working class, within the existing imperial international legal order? Or maybe this order ruthlessly defends the interests of the capitalist class, which makes any evolutionary change beneficial to the “ordinary people” impossible? Research assumptions/methodology: The article uses the legal theory method, which boils down to analysing doctrinal views on the Marxist theory of law, starting with Marx and Engels, to Pashukanis, and ending with Chimni and Miéville.
Basic theses/findings: The presented Marxist approaches to international law (Chimni and Miéville) differ in terms of the theoretical basis (Miéville drew on Pashuknis and Chimni directly on Marx), which in turn leads to different views on the essence of international law (Chimni proclaims the “class approach” while Miéville builds his theory around Pashukanis’ “commodity theory of law”) and the possibility of reforming the law of nations. Originality of results/epistemic value: Chimni’s approach turns out to be more useful, as, unlike Miéville, he sees the possibility of changing the imperial international legal order serving the transnational capitalist class within the international rule of law and with the use of human rights. Miéville’s theory is too skeptical and nihilistic. Yet, this should not prevent

Keywords: Marxism, international law, imperialism, reform, social class

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(43)/2025, pp. 97-119.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.97

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Number of downloads: 194

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The Constitutive and Conventional Nature of Legal Interpretation Directives

Prof. dr hab. Marek Smolak

Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań

English abstract: The article’s purpose is to demonstrate that the directives of legal interpretation are constitutive and conventional. The directives of legal interpretation are constitutive because they confer the status of legal interpretive practice on social practice. The directives of legal interpretation are conventional because they are arbitrary in the sense given to them by A. Marmor. The directives of legal interpretation constitute not only the legal interpretive practice, but also the values of this practice. Among these values, I include innovative thinking, reasoning by analogy, intellectual challenges. If constitutive conventions are responsive, i.e., if they respond to various human needs and values, then at the core of legal interpretive practice there are values that are momentous for those who participate in these practices. Two types of values are distinguished: values in a strong sense and in a weak sense. Values in the strong sense are values whose realization is acontextual, i.e., independent of any context of a given legal interpretive practice. I include certainty and uniformity of understanding of legal texts in this category of values. On the other hand, values in the weak sense are contextual values, i.e., ones that depend on the goals that legal interpretive practice is supposed to fulfil. Examples of contextual values are adaptability and stability of law. I considered that there is a special relationship between values in both the strong and weak senses and the directives of legal interpretation. Based on mutual expectations, members of a given community assume that a particular directive of legal interpretation best realizes an important value of legal interpretation. The correctness of the above relationship largely depends on previous legal interpretive practice.

Keywords: legal interpretation directives, constitutive rule, conventional rule, values in legal interpretive practice

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(43)/2025, pp. 80-96.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.80

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Number of downloads: 239

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Gustav Klimt’s Jurisprudence and the Problem of the Scale of Claims on the Law

Natalia Regina Skoczylas

University of Wrocław

Dr Mateusz Wojtanowski

University of Wrocław

Abstrakt w języku polskim: The subject of this article is Gustav Klimt’s Jurisprudenz, a work intended as part of a larger exhibition of paintings depicting specific fields of knowledge. In contrast to the prevailing interpretation of the work in question as an expression of the artist’s personal sense of having been wronged, the authors of this article propose an alternative perspective, suggesting that the image carries a valuable message for legal discourse. As they argue, the image in question makes it possible to identify a potential way of improving the practice of law by reducing claims on it. In terms of the axiological perspective of the considerations, the article is located within the liberal democratic tradition. The article has an interdisciplinary character as Jurisprudence is interpreted from the perspective of art history and legal philosophy.

Słowa kluczowe: Gustav Klimt, Jurisprudenz, art history, philosophy of law, claims to law, aesthetics of law

Język artykułu: polski

Opublikowano: Numer 2(43)/2025, s. 58-79.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.58

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Liczba ściągnięć: 209

Tekst jest dostępny na licencji Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa 4.0 Międzynarodowe.

Around Selected Themes in the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz. Part II

Prof. dr hab. Beata Polanowska-Sygulska

Jagiellonian University in Kraków

English abstract: Prima facie duties central to W.D. Ross’s concept of ethical conflict and principles of law, which are, in turn, central to R. Dworkin’s individualistic conception of law as interpretation, show similarities in the process of their application. A comparative analysis of prima facie duties and principles of law leads to the conclusion that there is a shared essence underlying the notion of normative conflict (collision of prima facie duties or legal principles in so-called “hard cases”). This essence consists in the assumed importance of the factual situation as a factor determining an ethical and legal choice from among conflicting duties or principles, and the importance of the decision-making subject in resolving the conflict. Factuality and the unique subject (whether the “plain man” or “Judge Hercules”) are the factors that condition the possibility of identifying the proper duty and nonabstract right. Simultaneously, these are the factors that establish normative conflicts as disputes not determinable by an abstractly assumed moral principle; they open normativity to new narratives, to development, and to evolution. They individualize the conflict through the individualized nature of facts and the decision-making subject. Thus, a comparative analysis may lead to the conclusion that the assumption of openness to collisions of principles and duties is an expression of liberal thought, as it is not a narrative that imposes or excludes. Any abstract approach to conflict resolution is inherently oppressive, as it disregards the importance of the decision-making subject and the complexity of factual situations. Individualism opens up the conflict rather than closing it. This is the nature of declarations of individual rights and freedoms – when conceptualized as legal principles, they inevitably expose rights and freedoms to conflict.

Keywords: Joseph Raz, perfectionist liberalism, personal autonomy, group rights as a category, political conception of human rights, Ronald Dworkin, ethical monism

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(43)/2025, pp. 42-57.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.42

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Number of downloads: 219

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William David Ross’s prima facie duties vis-à-vis Ronald Dworkin’s principles of law

Dr hab. Milena Korycka-Zirk, prof. UMK

Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń

Keywords: prima facie duties, principles of law, hard case, collision of principles, pluralism, individualism

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(43)/2025, pp. 22-41.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.22

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Number of downloads: 219

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Incoherence of Judges’ Decisions on Punishments

Dr Michał Janowski

University of Łódź

English abstract: The author conducted empirical research on the coherence of actual decisions on the type and severity of punishments imposed by judges. The empirical analysis undertaken by the author had a dual structure. It consisted of an examination of court files of actual criminal cases and a questionnaire study conducted among professional criminal judges. The results of the questionnaire study are presented in this article. The questionnaire study was based on an empirical experimental model. Decisions made by judges during a laboratory simulation differ widely even though the facts and legal rules are the same. Judges do not coherently translate sentencing factors into specific criminal penalties. There is no common translation factor. What is more, judges’ decisions differ depending on whether they are made in isolation or by comparison to cases belonging to another category.

Keywords: empirical research, incommensurability of values, incoherence of punishments, criminal law

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(43)/2025, pp. 7-21.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.7

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Number of downloads: 202

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Pygmalion’s Digital Dream: An Outline of Philosophical and Legal Issues of Human Digital Twins on the Example of Medical Applications

Dr hab. Tomasz Widłak, prof. UG

University of Gdańsk

English abstract: The aim of the article is to present a synthesis of the technological and social framework of the new, disruptive technology of human digital twins (HDT) and to outline the most important philosophical and legal issues related to it. The latter include ontological and phenomenological aspects in relation to the problem of legal personality and the status of HDT. Due to the universality of the technology and the breadth of issues related to it, the scope of the discussion was limited to examples of the use of technology in health care and medicine. The article presents the possibilities and threats of using HDTs in this area. Selected, most important examples of potential ethical and legal problems posing a challenge to future and current regulations in areas such as privacy and data protection, data quality and ownership, and patient autonomy were also analyzed. The conclusions of the article, point that the changes resulting from this disruptive technology go beyond purely practical aspects and touch the philosophical foundations of the legal order. HDT technology itself, at its early stage of development, does not clearly determine the direction of evolution of legal humanism paradigm towards inclusive posthumanism or technological transhumanism. The need to consider the phenomenological perspective of the HDT experience was emphasized. It may become the most important factor determining possible conceptual changes in law and jurisprudence. In addition to the discussion, the article provides an extensive review of the existing computer science literature on HDT. There have been no studies on the issue of HDT from the perspective of jurisprudence in the legal literature so far.

Key words: Human digital twin, personalized medicine, artificial intelligence, new technology law, medical law, transhumanism, digital clone.

Language: Polish.

Published: no. 1(42)/2025, pp. 93-111.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2024.4.93

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Number of downloads: 241

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Psychological Competences of Mediators. Selected Aspects of Creative Thinking in the Process of Mediated Conflict Resolution

Dr Martyna Płudowska, Prof. dr hab. Andrzej Sękowski

The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin

English abstract: In Poland, recent years have seen a significant increase in interest in alternative methods of resolving conflicts and disputes, including mediation. This is not surprising, since treating conflict work as a creative process during which the parties work out a mutually satisfactory solution makes it an attractive alternative to taking a dispute to court. Assuming that for effective mediation, the mediator’s personal predispositions are as important as the knowledge and skills acquired in courses and training, we analyze selected psychological competencies of mediators, taking into account the specifics of the conflict resolution process they support. The article emphasizes the importance of creative thinking and behavior in the mediation process, taking into account the various stages of the process.

Key words: ADR, mediation, conflict, psychological competence of mediators.

Language: Polish

Published: no. 1(42)/2025, pp. 77-92.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2024.4.77

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Number of downloads: 228

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