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Practical‐Political Jurisprudence and the Dual Nature of Law
Author(s) -
Nason Sarah
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
ratio juris
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.344
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1467-9337
pISSN - 0952-1917
DOI - 10.1111/raju.12021
Subject(s) - jurisprudence , dual (grammatical number) , balance (ability) , value (mathematics) , politics , law , relation (database) , context (archaeology) , duality (order theory) , law and economics , sociology , epistemology , political science , philosophy , mathematics , computer science , psychology , paleontology , linguistics , discrete mathematics , database , neuroscience , biology , statistics
Law contains many dualities, though most, if not all, of these dualities resolve into one complex puzzle: To what extent is law a matter of pure social facts, or moral value untethered to social facts? I argue that each concept of law reconciles this duality in a different way on the basis of certain beneficial consequences that might result. Instead of pitting concepts against one another universally, we should accept that the balance between law's social fact and moral value dimensions is context‐specific in relation to particular legal puzzles. This balance can be achieved only by considering both political theory and empirical data.