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Schauer on Coercion, Acceptance, and Schizophrenia
Author(s) -
Juan Moreso José
Publication year - 2016
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.12124
Subject(s) - coercion (linguistics) , ideal (ethics) , law , core (optical fiber) , sociology , law and economics , political science , philosophy , computer science , telecommunications , linguistics
This article provides a comment on The Force of Law (Schauer 2015), which is Schauer's new and illuminating contribution to the place of law in our societies and in our lives. It constitutes a strong defence of the importance of coercion in law. First, I consider cases where the law is not able to motivate human behaviour adequately, in order to show that legal coercion is not always justified. Second, I examine the Rawlsian distinction between the ideal and the nonideal theory and its application to the theory of law. Third, I tentatively argue that coercion has no place in ideal theory, but a core place in nonideal theory. In this way, it may be plausible to reconstruct the motivation to accept the law, at least when the law is normatively justified.