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Natural Law and the Phenomenological Given

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The Threads of Natural Law

Part of the book series: Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice ((IUSGENT,volume 22))

Abstract

It is the aim of this essay to re-think the relationship between the phenomenological approach to philosophy of law and the natural law tradition. The hypothesis adopted as a starting point is that phenomenological legal philosophy is, at least, a non-positivistic philosophy of law, as far as it represents a metaempirical theory of law, and also involves an ethical objectivism incompatible with legal positivism.

The research is focused on Adolf Reinach’s theory of legal objects. The exposition highlights the social character of the acts in which legal objects come into being. It is centered on promising, as an archetype of social a priori acts.

The contribution of Reinach’s a priori science of law to natural law tradition can be summed up in three points: first, the gap between is and ought can be solved by the recovery of the idea of an ontological necessity; second, a “reine Rechtslehre” (a “pure theory of law”, in Kelsen’s words) can be founded on a iusnaturalistic basis and understood as a rigorous science (synthetic and a priori); finally, a philosophy of illocutionary acts according to the idea of an ontological necessity can be found in Reinach’s thought.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Crowe (2009), 62.

  2. 2.

    Ibid., 64.

  3. 3.

    Of course, Phenomenology can be understood differently, as shown by Crowe. See his exposition of Sartre or Merleau-Ponty in Crowe (2009), 65 ff.

  4. 4.

    Reinach (1913), 1.

  5. 5.

    Ibid.

  6. 6.

    Seifert (1987), 32–33.

  7. 7.

    Crespo (2011), 10.

  8. 8.

    Reinach (1913), 18.

  9. 9.

    Scheler (1973), 54.

  10. 10.

    Reinach (1913), 18.

  11. 11.

    Scheler (1973), 476 ff.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., 85 ff.

  13. 13.

    Ibid., 107–108.

  14. 14.

    Dubois (2002), 339.

  15. 15.

    Reinach (1983), 46.

  16. 16.

    Ibid., 5.

  17. 17.

    Ibid.

  18. 18.

    Ibid., 6.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., 4.

  20. 20.

    Dubois (2002), 341.

  21. 21.

    Reinach (1983), 4.

  22. 22.

    Ibid, 9.

  23. 23.

    Ibid.

  24. 24.

    Ibid.

  25. 25.

    Ibid, 6.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 7.

  27. 27.

    Ibid.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 4.

  29. 29.

    See Burkhardt (1986).

  30. 30.

    Searle (1969), 190.

  31. 31.

    As Barry Smith has pointed out: “I believe that, expressed in the fact mode, Searle’s account is correct but incomplete; it provides only a first, and almost trivial, part of an account of what social reality is.” See, Smith and Searle (2003), 286.

  32. 32.

    Reinach (1983), 136.

  33. 33.

    Ibid.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 252.

  35. 35.

    He takes this conception of natural law theory from Ahrens, in Hotzendorff Encyclopedia, as quoted on Reinach (1983), 41.

  36. 36.

    Crosby (1983), 193.

  37. 37.

    Husserl (1983).

  38. 38.

    Crosby (1983), 178.

  39. 39.

    Recasens Siches (1929), 231.

  40. 40.

    Seifert (1983), Aletheia, 3.

  41. 41.

    Reinach (1983), 7.

  42. 42.

    Frings (1997), 60.

  43. 43.

    Ibid.

  44. 44.

    Pérez Luño (1997).

  45. 45.

    Here we can find one of the “pragmatic” keys of Scheler’s phenomenology.

  46. 46.

    Scheler (1973), 141.

  47. 47.

    Scheler (1979), Bd. XI, 119.

  48. 48.

    Scheler (1976), Bd. IX, 252.

  49. 49.

    Scheler (2000), Gessammelte Werke, Bd., V., 198. Translation to English by Manfred Frings (1997), 63.

  50. 50.

    Vacek (1979), 245.

  51. 51.

    Welzel (1962).

  52. 52.

    Conrad-Martius (1983).

  53. 53.

    Seifert (1983), 213.

  54. 54.

    Reinach was working on a essay about the human person by the time of his death, See Schuhmann (1987), 277.

  55. 55.

    Ollero (2007), 218 ff.

  56. 56.

    Dubois (2002), 345.

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  1. Filosofía del Derecho, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Panamá 17, 28290, Madrid, Spain

    Marta Albert

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  1. , Filosofía del Derecho, Universidad de Sevilla, Enramadilla 18-20, Seville, 41018, Spain

    Francisco José Contreras

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Albert, M. (2013). Natural Law and the Phenomenological Given. In: Contreras, F. (eds) The Threads of Natural Law. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 22. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5656-4_7

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