Jagiellonian University in Kraków

Abstract: What is the relationship between general legal theories and legal narratives? In this paper we aim to problematise this relationship in the context of different legal disagreements. As we see it, the Dworkinean category of “theoretical disagreement”, which basically refers to the phenomenon of disagreement “about the grounds of law” (between different general legal theories) is not sufficient to cover all substantial disagreements that appear in legal practice. Thus, we propose a category of “narrative disagreement” which has a wider scope. Eventually, we discuss the thesis of a possible equality of legal theories, as well as legal narratives, which we understand as an inevitable consequence of the relationship between legal theories/narratives and a special type of evidence on which they both rely: truisms about the law that laymen and/or legal professionals generally share.

Keywords: general legal theories, legal disagreement, theoretical disagreement, narrative disagreement, legal narrative, legal truisms

Language: English

Received: 26.12.2017
Accepted: 26.01.2018

Published: Number 2(17)/2018, pp. 47-59.

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Jagiellonian University

English abstract: Ronald Dworkin once criticized legal positivists for that their theories are founded on a mistake called “the semantic sting”, which claims that legal philosophy, as a silent prologue to every decision of law, cannot be only a semantic account to the word ‘law’. The article presents Dworkinean argument (and its most influential critique of Herbert Hart) and examines whether Jerzy Wróblewski’s legal theory (in its descriptive layer similar to the theory of Herbert Hart) is susceptible to “the semantic sting”. Finally, the answer given is based on a particular solution: Jerzy Wróblewski’s concept of rationality of legal decision appliance. The answer is in accoradance with argumentation of soft positivists, such as Herbert Hart or Jules Coleman, and is based on the acceptance that, even if Dworkin’s argument is meaningfull, it still does not apply to the theories presented by the soft positivists. The controversy whether a particular theory is “semantically stung” is de facto a dispute over a proper methodological approach to legal theory and a relation in which such a theory remains to interpretative jurisprudence of Ronald Dworkin. In this case we can treat Jerzy Wróblewski’s theory as a metatheory, which deals with theoretic disagreement over the grounds of the law, while deciding the case.

Keywords: Ronald Dworkin, Herbert Hart, Jerzy Wróblewski, semantic sting, legal positivism, rational application of law

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(1)/2010, pp. 39-47.

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Number of downloads: 173

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