Scholarlink

<p>The idea of law is a <i>focus imaginarius</i> lying beyond the bounds of possible experience but nevertheless structuring that experience. The practices composing a legal order refer to the idea of law, and those references embody assumptions concerning law’s nature. Yet, when we try to combine these various assumptions into a coherent understanding of the idea of law, we find them to be problematic. The resulting puzzles give rise to a philosophical debate concerning law’s nature. The positions adopted within that debate tacitly inform and structure the scholarly analysis and judicial application of law. In this way, law proves to be a reflexive enterprise involving inquiry into its own nature. Denials of this reflexivity lead to serious distortions in our understanding of the framework of legal thought. When properly understood, the idea of law proves to be an immanent moral ideal, closely related to ideas of freedom, justice, and civility. Since, in the circumstances of the real world, the ideal is never fully attainable, law is always touched, to a greater or lesser extent, by the “pathos of incompleteness.”</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

On the Idea of Law

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2025年5月9日

查看全文
  • N. E. Simmonds

摘要

The idea of law is a focus imaginarius lying beyond the bounds of possible experience but nevertheless structuring that experience. The practices composing a legal order refer to the idea of law, and those references embody assumptions concerning law’s nature. Yet, when we try to combine these various assumptions into a coherent understanding of the idea of law, we find them to be problematic. The resulting puzzles give rise to a philosophical debate concerning law’s nature. The positions adopted within that debate tacitly inform and structure the scholarly analysis and judicial application of law. In this way, law proves to be a reflexive enterprise involving inquiry into its own nature. Denials of this reflexivity lead to serious distortions in our understanding of the framework of legal thought. When properly understood, the idea of law proves to be an immanent moral ideal, closely related to ideas of freedom, justice, and civility. Since, in the circumstances of the real world, the ideal is never fully attainable, law is always touched, to a greater or lesser extent, by the “pathos of incompleteness.”