Legge naturale

The term “natural law” is ambiguous. It refers to a type of moral theory, as well as to a type of legal theory, but the core claims of the two kinds of theory are logically independent. It does not refer to the laws of nature, the laws that science aims to describe. According to natural law moral theory, the moral standards that govern human behavior are, in un certo senso, objectively derived from the nature of human beings and the nature of the world. While being logically independent of natural law legal theory, the two theories intersect. Tuttavia, the majority of the article will focus on natural law legal theory.

According to natural law legal theory, the authority of legal standards necessarily derives, almeno in parte, from considerations having to do with the moral merit of those standards. There are a number of different kinds of natural law legal theories, differing from each other with respect to the role that morality plays in determining the authority of legal norms. The conceptual jurisprudence of John Austin provides a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of law that distinguishes law from non-law in every possible world. Classical natural law theory such as the theory of Thomas Aquinas focuses on the overlap between natural law moral and legal theories. Allo stesso modo, the neo-naturalism of John Finnis is a development of classical natural law theory. In contrasto, the procedural naturalism of Lon L. Fuller is a rejection of the conceptual naturalist idea that there are necessary substantive moral constraints on the content of law. Lastly, Ronald Dworkin’s theory is a response and critique of legal positivism. All of these theories subscribe to one or more basic tenets of natural law legal theory and are important to its development and influence.

Sommario
Two Kinds of Natural Law Theory
Conceptual Naturalism
The Project of Conceptual Jurisprudence
Classical Natural Law Theory
The Substantive Neo-Naturalism of John Finnis
The Procedural Naturalism of Lon L. Più pieno
Ronald Dworkin’s “Third Theory”
Riferimenti e approfondimenti
1. Two Kinds of Natural Law Theory

All'inizio, it is important to distinguish two kinds of theory that go by the name of natural law. The first is a theory of morality that is roughly characterized by the following theses. Primo, moral propositions have what is sometimes called objective standing in the sense that such propositions are the bearers of objective truth-value; questo è, moral propositions can be objectively true or false. Though moral objectivism is sometimes equated with moral realism (Vedere, per esempio., Moore 1992, 190: “the truth of any moral proposition lies in its correspondence with a mind- and convention-independent moral reality”), the relationship between the two theories is controversial. Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (1988), Per esempio, views moral objectivism as one species of moral realism, but not the only form; on Sayre-McCord’s view, moral subjectivism and moral intersubjectivism are also forms of moral realism. A rigor di termini, Poi, natural law moral theory is committed only to the objectivity of moral norms.

The second thesis constituting the core of natural law moral theory is the claim that standards of morality are in some sense derived from, or entailed by, the nature of the world and the nature of human beings. S. Tommaso d'Aquino, Per esempio, identifies the rational nature of human beings as that which defines moral law: “the rule and measure of human acts is the reason, which is the first principle of human acts” (D'Aquino, ST I-II, Q.90, A.I). On this common view, since human beings are by nature rational beings, it is morally appropriate that they should behave in a way that conforms to their rational nature. Così, Aquinas derives the moral law from the nature of human beings (così, “natural law”).

But there is another kind of natural law theory having to do with the relationship of morality to law. According to natural law theory of law, there is no clean division between the notion of law and the notion of morality. Though there are different versions of natural law theory, all subscribe to the thesis that there are at least some laws that depend for their “authority” not on some pre-existing human convention, but on the logical relationship in which they stand to moral standards. Otherwise put, some norms are authoritative in virtue of their moral content, even when there is no convention that makes moral merit a criterion of legal validity. The idea that the concepts of law and morality intersect in some way is called the Overlap Thesis.

As an empirical matter, many natural law moral theorists are also natural law legal theorists, but the two theories, in senso stretto, are logically independent. One can deny natural law theory of law but hold a natural law theory of morality. Giovanni Austin, the most influential of the early legal positivists, Per esempio, denied the Overlap Thesis but held something that resembles a natural law ethical theory.

Infatti, Austin explicitly endorsed the view that it is not necessarily true that the legal validity of a norm depends on whether its content conforms to morality. But while Austin thus denied the Overlap Thesis, he accepted an objectivist moral theory; Infatti, Austin inherited his utilitarianism almost wholesale from J.S. Mill and Jeremy Bentham. Here it is worth noting that utilitarians sometimes seem to suggest that they derive their utilitarianism from certain facts about human nature; as Bentham once wrote, “nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne” (Bentham 1948, 1). Così, a commitment to natural law theory of morality is consistent with the denial of natural law theory of law.

Al contrario, one could, though this would be unusual, accept a natural law theory of law without holding a natural law theory of morality. Si potrebbe, Per esempio, hold that the conceptual point of law is, in parte, to reproduce the demands of morality, but also hold a form of ethical subjectivism (or relativism). On this peculiar view, the conceptual point of law would be to enforce those standards that are morally valid in virtue of cultural consensus. Per questo motivo, natural law theory of law is logically independent of natural law theory of morality. The remainder of this essay will be exclusively concerned with natural law theories of law.

2. Conceptual Naturalism
UN. The Project of Conceptual Jurisprudence

The principal objective of conceptual (or analytic) jurisprudence has traditionally been to provide an account of what distinguishes law as a system of norms from other systems of norms, come le norme etiche. Come John Austin descrive il progetto, conceptual jurisprudence seeks “the essence or nature which is common to all laws that are properly so called” (Austin 1995, 11). Di conseguenza, the task of conceptual jurisprudence is to provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of law that distinguishes law from non-law in every possible world.

Mentre questo compito viene solitamente interpretato come un tentativo di analizzare i concetti di diritto e ordinamento giuridico, c'è una certa confusione sia riguardo al valore che al carattere dell'analisi concettuale in filosofia del diritto. Come Brian Leiter (1998) sottolinea, La filosofia del diritto è una delle poche discipline filosofiche che ha come principale interesse l’analisi concettuale; la maggior parte degli altri ambiti della filosofia hanno preso una svolta naturalistica, incorporare gli strumenti e i metodi delle scienze. Chiarire il ruolo dell'analisi concettuale nel diritto, Brian Bix (1995) distingue una serie di scopi diversi che possono essere raggiunti dalle affermazioni concettuali: (1) per monitorare l’uso linguistico; (2) stabilire significati; (3) per spiegare cosa è importante o essenziale in una classe di oggetti; e (4) stabilire un test valutativo per il concetto-parola. Bix ritiene che l'analisi concettuale in diritto sia principalmente interessata (3) e (4).

In ogni caso, L’analisi concettuale del diritto rimane un aspetto importante, se controverso, progetto nella teoria giuridica contemporanea. Conceptual theories of law have traditionally been characterized in terms of their posture towards the Overlap Thesis. Così, conceptual theories of law have traditionally been divided into two main categories: those like natural law legal theory that affirm there is a conceptual relation between law and morality and those like legal positivism that deny such a relation.

b. Classical Natural Law Theory

Tutte le forme di teoria del diritto naturale aderiscono alla tesi della sovrapposizione, which asserts that there is some kind of non-conventional relation between law and morality. Secondo questo punto di vista, Poi, the notion of law cannot be fully articulated without some reference to moral notions. Anche se la tesi della sovrapposizione può sembrare inequivocabile, ci sono molti modi diversi in cui può essere interpretato.

The strongest construction of the Overlap Thesis forms the foundation for the classical naturalism of Aquinas and Blackstone. Aquinas distinguishes four kinds of law: (1) eternal law; (2) natural law; (3) human law; e (4) divine law. Eternal law is comprised of those laws that govern the nature of an eternal universe; as Susan Dimock (1999, 22) lo mette, one can “think of eternal law as comprising all those scientific (fisico, chimico, biological, psicologico, ecc.) ‘laws’ by which the universe is ordered.” Divine law is concerned with those standards that must be satisfied by a human being to achieve eternal salvation. One cannot discover divine law by natural reason alone; the precepts of divine law are disclosed only through divine revelation.

The natural law is comprised of those precepts of the eternal law that govern the behavior of beings possessing reason and free will. The first precept of the natural law, according to Aquinas, is the somewhat vacuous imperative to do good and avoid evil. Here it is worth noting that Aquinas holds a natural law theory of morality: what is good and evil, according to Aquinas, is derived from the rational nature of human beings. Good and evil are thus both objective and universal.

But Aquinas is also a natural law legal theorist. A suo avviso, a human law (questo è, that which is promulgated by human beings) is valid only insofar as its content conforms to the content of the natural law; as Aquinas puts the point: “[E]very human law has just so much of the nature of law as is derived from the law of nature. But if in any point it deflects from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of law” (ST I-II, Q.95, A.II). To paraphrase Augustine’s famous remark, an unjust law is really no law at all.

The idea that a norm that does not conform to the natural law cannot be legally valid is the defining thesis of conceptual naturalism. As William Blackstone describes the thesis, “This law of nature, essendo coevo dell’uomo e dettato da Dio stesso, è ovviamente superiore in obblighi a qualsiasi altro. È vincolante in tutto il mondo, in tutti i paesi, e in ogni momento: nessuna legge umana ha alcuna validità, se contrario a questo; e quelli che sono validi traggono tutta la loro forza, e tutta la loro autorità, mediatamente o immediatamente, from this original” (1979, 41). In questo passaggio, Blackstone articulates the two claims that constitute the theoretical core of conceptual naturalism: 1) non possono esistere norme giuridicamente valide che siano in conflitto con la legge naturale; e 2) tutte le leggi valide derivano la forza e l'autorità che hanno dalla legge naturale.

It should be noted that classical naturalism is consistent with allowing a substantial role to human beings in the manufacture of law. While the classical naturalist seems committed to the claim that the law necessarily incorporates all moral principles, this claim does not imply that the law is exhausted by the set of moral principles. There will still be coordination problems (per esempio., which side of the road to drive on) that can be resolved in any number of ways consistent with the set of moral principles. Così, the classical naturalist does not deny that human beings have considerable discretion in creating natural law. Rather she claims only that such discretion is necessarily limited by moral norms: legal norms that are promulgated by human beings are valid only if they are consistent with morality.

Critics of conceptual naturalism have raised a number of objections to this view. Primo, it has often been pointed out that, contra Augustine, unjust laws are all-too- frequently enforced against persons. As Austin petulantly put the point:

Ora, to say that human laws which conflict with the Divine law are not binding, vale a dire, are not laws, is to talk stark nonsense. The most pernicious laws, and therefore those which are most opposed to the will of God, have been and are continually enforced as laws by judicial tribunals. Suppose an act innocuous, or positively beneficial, be prohibited by the sovereign under the penalty of death; if I commit this act, I shall be tried and condemned, and if I object to the sentence, that it is contrary to the law of God, who has commanded that human lawgivers shall not prohibit acts which have no evil consequences, the Court of Justice will demonstrate the inconclusiveness of my reasoning by hanging me up, in pursuance of the law of which I have impugned the validity (Austin 1995, 158).

Naturalmente,, as Brian Bix (1999) sottolinea, the argument does little work for Austin because it is always possible for a court to enforce a law against a person that does not satisfy Austin’s own theory of legal validity.

Another frequently expressed worry is that conceptual naturalism undermines the possibility of moral criticism of the law; inasmuch as conformity with natural law is a necessary condition for legal validity, all valid law is, per definizione, morally just. Così, on this line of reasoning, the legal validity of a norm necessarily entails its moral justice. As Jules Coleman and Jeffrey Murphy (1990, 18) put the point:

The important things [conceptual naturalism] supposedly allows us to do (per esempio., morally evaluate the law and determine our moral obligations with respect to the law) are actually rendered more difficult by its collapse of the distinction between morality and law. If we really want to think about the law from the moral point of view, it may obscure the task if we see law and morality as essentially linked in some way. Moral criticism and reform of law may be aided by an initial moral skepticism about the law.

There are a couple of problems with this line of objection. Primo, conceptual naturalism does not foreclose criticism of those norms that are being enforced by a society as law. Insofar as it can plausibly be claimed that the content of a norm being enforced by society as law does not conform to the natural law, this is a legitimate ground of moral criticism: given that the norm being enforced by law is unjust, segue, according to conceptual naturalism, that it is not legally valid. Così, the state commits wrong by enforcing that norm against private citizens.

Secondo, and more importantly, this line of objection seeks to criticize a conceptual theory of law by pointing to its practical implications ñ a strategy that seems to commit a category mistake. Conceptual jurisprudence assumes the existence of a core of social practices (constituting law) that requires a conceptual explanation. The project motivating conceptual jurisprudence, Poi, is to articulate the concept of law in a way that accounts for these pre-existing social practices. A conceptual theory of law can legitimately be criticized for its failure to adequately account for the pre-existing data, com'era; but it cannot legitimately be criticized for either its normative quality or its practical implications.

A more interesting line of argument has recently been taken up by Brian Bix (1996). Following John Finnis (1980), Bix rejects the interpretation of Aquinas and Blackstone as conceptual naturalists, arguing instead that the claim that an unjust law is not a law should not be taken literally:

A more reasonable interpretation of statements like “an unjust law is no law at all” is that unjust laws are not laws “in the fullest sense.” As we might say of some professional, who had the necessary degrees and credentials, but seemed nonetheless to lack the necessary ability or judgment: “she’s no lawyer” or “he’s no doctor.” This only indicates that we do not think that the title in this case carries with it all the implications it usually does. Allo stesso modo, to say that an unjust law is “not really law” may only be to point out that it does not carry the same moral force or offer the same reasons for action as laws consistent with “higher law” (Bix 1996, 226).

Così, Bix construes Aquinas and Blackstone as having views more similar to the neo- naturalism of John Finnis discussed below in Section III. Tuttavia, while a plausible case can be made in favor of Bix’s view, the long history of construing Aquinas and Blackstone as conceptual naturalists, along with its pedagogical value in developing other theories of law, ensures that this practice is likely, for better or worse, to continue indefinitely.

3. The Substantive Neo-Naturalism of John Finnis

John Finnis takes himself to be explicating and developing the views of Aquinas and Blackstone. Like Bix, Finnis ritiene che il naturalismo di Tommaso d'Aquino e Blackstone non dovrebbe essere interpretato come una spiegazione concettuale delle condizioni di esistenza del diritto. Secondo Finnis, i naturalisti classici non si preoccupavano di dare una spiegazione concettuale della validità giuridica; si preoccupavano piuttosto di spiegare la forza morale della legge: “I principi del diritto naturale spiegano la forza obbligatoria (in the fullest sense of ‘obligation’) delle leggi positive, anche quando quelle leggi non possono essere dedotte da quei principi” (Trovato nel 1980, 23-24). Sul punto di vista di Finnis sulla tesi della sovrapposizione, la funzione essenziale del diritto è fornire una giustificazione alla coercizione statale (a view he shares with Ronald Dworkin). Di conseguenza, una legge ingiusta può essere giuridicamente valida, but it cannot provide an adequate justification for use of the state coercive power and is hence not obligatory in the fullest sense; così, una legge ingiusta non riesce a realizzare gli ideali morali impliciti nel concetto di legge. Una legge ingiusta, su questo punto di vista, è giuridicamente vincolante, ma non è pienamente legge.

Like classical naturalism, Finnis’s naturalism is both an ethical theory and a theory of law. Finnis distinguishes a number of equally valuable basic goods: vita, health, conoscenza, play, friendship, religione, and aesthetic experience. Each of these goods, according to Finnis, has intrinsic value in the sense that it should, given human nature, be valued for its own sake and not merely for the sake of some other good it can assist in bringing about. Inoltre, each of these goods is universal in the sense that it governs all human cultures at all times. The point of moral principles, su questo punto di vista, is to give ethical structure to the pursuit of these basic goods; moral principles enable us to select among competing goods and to define what a human being can permissibly do in pursuit of a basic good.

On Finnis’s view, the conceptual point of law is to facilitate the common good by providing authoritative rules that solve coordination problems that arise in connection with the common pursuit of these basic goods. Così, Finnis sums up his theory of law as follows:

[T]he term ‘law’ … refer[s] primarily to rules made, in accordance with regulative legal rules, by a determinate and effective authority (itself identified and, standardly, constituted as an institution by legal rules) for a ‘complete’ community, and buttressed by sanctions in accordance with the rule-guided stipulations of adjudicative institutions, this ensemble of rules and institutions being directed to reasonably resolving any of the community’s co-ordination problems (and to ratifying, tolerating, regulating, or overriding co-ordination solutions from any other institutions or sources of norms) for the common good of that community (Trovato nel 1980, 276).

Di nuovo, it bears emphasizing that Finnis takes care to deny that there is any necessary moral test for legal validity: “one would simply be misunderstanding my conception of the nature and purpose of explanatory definitions of theoretical concepts if one supposed that my definition ‘ruled out as non-laws’ laws which failed to meet, or meet fully, one or other of the elements of the definition” (Trovato nel 1980, 278).

Tuttavia, Finnis believes that to the extent that a norm fails to satisfy these conditions, it likewise fails to fully manifest the nature of law and thereby fails to fully obligate the citizen-subject of the law. Unjust laws may obligate in a technical legal sense, on Finnis’s view, but they may fail to provide moral reasons for action of the sort that it is the point of legal authority to provide. Così, Finnis argues that “a ruler’s use of authority is radically defective if he exploits his opportunities by making stipulations intended by him not for the common good but for his own or his friends’ or party’s or faction’s advantage, or out of malice against some person or group” (Trovato nel 1980, 352). For the ultimate basis of a ruler’s moral authority, su questo punto di vista, “is the fact that he has the opportunity, and thus the responsibility, of furthering the common good by stipulating solutions to a community’s co- ordination problems” (Trovato nel 1980, 351).

Finnis’s theory is certainly more plausible as a theory of law than the traditional interpretation of classical naturalism, but such plausibility comes, for better or worse, at the expense of naturalism’s identity as a distinct theory of law. Infatti, it appears that Finnis’s natural law theory is compatible with naturalism’s historical adversary, legal positivism, inasmuch as Finnis’s view is compatible with a source-based theory of legal validity; laws that are technically valid in virtue of source but unjust do not, according to Finnis, fully obligate the citizen. Infatti, Finnis (1996) believes that Aquinas’s classical naturalism fully affirms the notion that human laws are “posited.”

4. The Procedural Naturalism of Lon L. Più pieno

Like Finnis, Lon Fuller (1964) rejects the conceptual naturalist idea that there are necessary substantive moral constraints on the content of law. But Fuller, unlike Finnis, believes that law is necessarily subject to a procedural morality. Dal punto di vista di Fuller, human activity is necessarily goal-oriented or purposive in the sense that people engage in a particular activity because it helps them to achieve some end. Insofar as human activity is essentially purposive, according to Fuller, particular human activities can be understood only in terms that make reference to their purposes and ends. Così, since lawmaking is essentially purposive activity, it can be understood only in terms that explicitly acknowledge its essential values and purposes:

The only formula that might be called a definition of law offered in these writings is by now thoroughly familiar: law is the enterprise of subjecting human conduct to the governance of rules. Unlike most modern theories of law, this view treats law as an activity and regards a legal system as the product of a sustained purposive effort (Fuller 1964, 106).

To the extent that a definition of law can be given, Poi, it must include the idea that law’s essential function is to “achiev[e] [sociale] order through subjecting people’s conduct to the guidance of general rules by which they may themselves orient their behavior” (Fuller 1965, 657).

Fuller’s functionalist conception of law implies that nothing can count as law unless it is capable of performing law’s essential function of guiding behavior. And to be capable of performing this function, a system of rules must satisfy the following principles:

(P1) le regole devono essere espresse in termini generali;
(P2) le regole devono essere promulgate pubblicamente;
(P3) le norme devono avere effetti prospettici;
(P4) le regole devono essere espresse in termini comprensibili;
(P5) le regole devono essere coerenti tra loro;
(P6) le norme non devono imporre comportamenti che esulano dai poteri delle parti interessate;
(P7) le regole non devono essere cambiate così frequentemente che il soggetto non possa fare affidamento su di esse; e
(P8) le norme devono essere amministrate in modo coerente con la loro formulazione.

Dal punto di vista di Fuller, nessun sistema di regole che non riesca a soddisfare minimamente questi principi di legalità può raggiungere lo scopo essenziale del diritto di realizzare l’ordine sociale attraverso l’uso di regole che guidano il comportamento. Un sistema di regole che non riesce a soddisfare (P2) o (P4), Per esempio, non possono guidare il comportamento perché le persone non saranno in grado di determinare cosa richiedono le regole. Di conseguenza, Fuller conclude che i suoi otto principi sono “interni” al diritto, nel senso che sono integrati nelle condizioni di esistenza del diritto..

These internal principles constitute a morality, according to Fuller, because law necessarily has positive moral value in two respects: (1) law conduces to a state of social order and (2) does so by respecting human autonomy because rules guide behavior. Since no system of rules can achieve these morally valuable objectives without minimally complying with the principles of legality, segue, on Fuller’s view, that they constitute a morality. Since these moral principles are built into the existence conditions for law, they are internal and hence represent a conceptual connection between law and morality. Così, like the classical naturalists and unlike Finnis, Fuller subscribes to the strongest form of the Overlap Thesis, which makes him a conceptual naturalist.

Tuttavia, Fuller’s conceptual naturalism is fundamentally different from that of classical naturalism. Primo, Fuller rejects the classical naturalist view that there are necessary moral constraints on the content of law, holding instead that there are necessary moral constraints on the procedural mechanisms by which law is made and administered: “What I have called the internal morality of law is … a procedural version of natural law … [in the sense that it is] concerned, not with the substantive aims of legal rules, but with the ways in which a system of rules for governing human conduct must be constructed and administered if it is to be efficacious and at the same time remain what it purports to be” (Fuller 1964, 96- 97).

Secondo, Fuller identifies the conceptual connection between law and morality at a higher level of abstraction than the classical naturalists. The classical naturalists view morality as providing substantive constraints on the content of individual laws; an unjust norm, su questo punto di vista, is conceptually disqualified from being legally valid. In contrasto, Fuller views morality as providing a constraint on the existence of a legal system: “Un fallimento totale in una qualsiasi di queste otto direzioni non si traduce semplicemente in un cattivo sistema giuridico; il risultato è qualcosa che non è propriamente chiamato sistema legale” (Fuller 1964, 39).

Fuller’s procedural naturalism is vulnerable to a number of objections. H.L.A. Hart, Per esempio, denies Fuller’s claim that the principles of legality constitute an internal morality; according to Hart, Fuller confuses the notions of morality and efficacy:

[T]he author’s insistence on classifying these principles of legality as a “morality” is a source of confusion both for him and his readers…. [T]he crucial objection to the designation of these principles of good legal craftsmanship as morality, in spite of the qualification “inner,” is that it perpetrates a confusion between two notions that it is vital to hold apart: the notions of purposive activity and morality. Poisoning is no doubt a purposive activity, and reflections on its purpose may show that it has its internal principles. (“Avoid poisons however lethal if they cause the victim to vomit”….) But to call these principles of the poisoner’s art “the morality of poisoning” would simply blur the distinction between the notion of efficiency for a purpose and those final judgments about activities and purposes with which morality in its various forms is concerned (Hart 1965, 1285-86).

Dal punto di vista di Hart, all actions, including virtuous acts like lawmaking and impermissible acts like poisoning, have their own internal standards of efficacy. But insofar as such standards of efficacy conflict with morality, as they do in the case of poisoning, it follows that they are distinct from moral standards. Così, while Hart concedes that something like Fuller’s eight principles are built into the existence conditions for law, he concludes they do not constitute a conceptual connection between law and morality.

Purtroppo, Hart overlooks the fact that most of Fuller’s eight principles double as moral ideals of fairness. Per esempio, public promulgation in understandable terms may be a necessary condition for efficacy, but it is also a moral ideal; it is morally objectionable for a state to enforce rules that have not been publicly promulgated in terms reasonably calculated to give notice of what is required. Allo stesso modo, we take it for granted that it is wrong for a state to enact retroactive rules, inconsistent rules, and rules that require what is impossible. Poisoning may have its internal standards of efficacy, but such standards are distinguishable from the principles of legality in that they conflict with moral ideals.

Tuttavia, Fuller’s principles operate internally, not as moral ideals, but merely as principles of efficacy. As Fuller would likely acknowledge, the existence of a legal system is consistent with considerable divergence from the principles of legality. Legal standards, Per esempio, are necessarily promulgated in general terms that inevitably give rise to problems of vagueness. And officials all too often fail to administer the laws in a fair and even-handed manner even in the best of legal systems. These divergences may always be prima facie objectionable, but they are inconsistent with a legal system only when they render a legal system incapable of performing its essential function of guiding behavior. Insofar as these principles are built into the existence conditions for law, it is because they operate as efficacy conditions and not because they function as moral ideals.

5. Ronald Dworkin’s “Third Theory”

Ronald Dworkin’s so-called third theory of law is best understood as a response to legal positivism, which is essentially constituted by three theoretical commitments: la tesi del fatto sociale, la tesi della convenzionalità, and the Separability Thesis. The Social Fact Thesis asserts it is a necessary truth that legal validity is ultimately a function of certain kinds of social facts; the idea here is that what ultimately explains the validity of a law is the presence of certain social facts, especially formal promulgation by a legislature.

La tesi della convenzionalità sottolinea la natura convenzionale del diritto, claiming that the social facts giving rise to legal validity are authoritative in virtue of a social convention. Su questo punto di vista, the criteria that determine whether or not any given norm counts as a legal norm are binding because of an implicit or explicit agreement among officials. Così, Per esempio, gli Stati Uniti. Constitution is authoritative in virtue of the conventional fact that it was formally ratified by all fifty states.

La tesi della separabilità, al livello più generale, nega semplicemente la tesi della sovrapposizione del naturalismo; secondo la Tesi di Separabilità, non vi è alcuna sovrapposizione concettuale tra le nozioni di diritto e moralità. As Hart more narrowly construes it, the Separability Thesis is “just the simple contention that it is in no sense a necessary truth that laws reproduce or satisfy certain demands of morality, anche se in realtà lo hanno fatto spesso” (Hart 1994, 185-186).

Dworkin rejects positivism’s Social Fact Thesis on the ground that there are some legal standards the authority of which cannot be explained in terms of social facts. Nel decidere casi difficili, Per esempio, i giudici spesso invocano principi morali che secondo Dworkin non derivano la loro autorità legale dai criteri sociali di legalità contenuti in una norma di riconoscimento (Dwork nel 1977, P. 40).

In Riggs v. Palmer, Per esempio, the court considered the question of whether a murderer could take under the will of his victim. At the time the case was decided, neither the statutes nor the case law governing wills expressly prohibited a murderer from taking under his victim’s will. Nonostante questo, the court declined to award the defendant his gift under the will on the ground that it would be wrong to allow him to profit from such a grievous wrong. Dal punto di vista di Dworkin, the court decided the case by citing “the principle that no man may profit from his own wrong as a background standard against which to read the statute of wills and in this way justified a new interpretation of that statute” (Dwork nel 1977, 29).

Dal punto di vista di Dworkin, the Riggs court was not just reaching beyond the law to extralegal standards when it considered this principle. For the Riggs judges would “rightfully” have been criticized had they failed to consider this principle; if it were merely an extralegal standard, there would be no rightful grounds to criticize a failure to consider it (Dwork nel 1977, 35). Di conseguenza, Dworkin concludes that the best explanation for the propriety of such criticism is that principles are part of the law.

Ulteriore, Dworkin maintains that the legal authority of standards like the Riggs principle cannot derive from promulgation in accordance with purely formal requirements: “[e]ven though principles draw support from the official acts of legal institutions, they do not have a simple or direct enough connection with these acts to frame that connection in terms of criteria specified by some ultimate master rule of recognition” (Dwork nel 1977, 41).

Dal punto di vista di Dworkin, the legal authority of the Riggs principle can be explained wholly in terms of its content. The Riggs principle was binding, in parte, because it is a requirement of fundamental fairness that figures into the best moral justification for a society’s legal practices considered as a whole. A moral principle is legally authoritative, secondo Dworkin, insofar as it maximally conduces to the best moral justification for a society’s legal practices considered as a whole.

Dworkin believes that a legal principle maximally contributes to such a justification if and only if it satisfies two conditions: (1) il principio è coerente con il materiale giuridico esistente; e (2) il principio è lo standard moralmente più attraente che soddisfa (1). Il principio giuridico corretto è quello che rende la legge la migliore morale possibile. Di conseguenza, dal punto di vista di Dworkin, adjudication is and should be interpretive:

[J]udges should decide hard cases by interpreting the political structure of their community in the following, forse modo speciale: cercando di trovare la migliore giustificazione che riescono a trovare, nei principi della moralità politica, per la struttura nel suo complesso, dalle norme e disposizioni costituzionali più profonde ai dettagli, Per esempio, the private law of tort or contract (Dwork nel 1982, 165).

Ci sono, così, due elementi di una interpretazione riuscita. Primo, poiché un'interpretazione ha successo nella misura in cui giustifica le pratiche particolari di una particolare società, l'interpretazione deve adattarsi a tali pratiche, nel senso che è coerente con i materiali giuridici esistenti che definiscono le pratiche. Secondo, poiché un’interpretazione fornisce una giustificazione morale per tali pratiche, deve presentarli nella migliore luce morale possibile.

Per questo motivo, Dworkin argues that a judge should strive to interpret a case in roughly the following way:

Un giudice attento potrebbe stabilirlo da solo, Per esempio, una “soglia” approssimativa di adattamento che qualsiasi interpretazione dei dati deve soddisfare per essere “accettabile” nella dimensione di adattamento, e quindi supponiamo che se più di un'interpretazione di qualche parte della legge soddisfa questa soglia, bisognerebbe fare la scelta tra questi, non attraverso ulteriori e più precisi confronti tra i due lungo quella dimensione, ma scegliendo l’interpretazione “sostanzialmente” migliore, questo è, che promuove meglio gli ideali politici che ritiene corretti (Dwork nel 1982, 171).

As Dworkin conceives it, Poi, the judge must approach judicial decision-making as something that resembles an exercise in moral philosophy. Così, Per esempio, the judge must decide cases on the basis of those moral principles that “figure[] in the soundest theory of law that can be provided as a justification for the explicit substantive and institutional rules of the jurisdiction in question” (Dwork nel 1977, 66).

And this is a process, secondo Dworkin, that “must carry the lawyer very deep into political and moral theory.” Indeed, in later writings, Dworkin goes so far as to claim, somewhat implausibly, that “any judge’s opinion is itself a piece of legal philosophy, even when the philosophy is hidden and the visible argument is dominated by citation and lists of facts” (Dwork nel 1986, 90).

Dworkin believes his theory of judicial obligation is a consequence of what he calls the Rights Thesis, according to which judicial decisions always enforce pre-existing rights: “even when no settled rule disposes of the case, one party may nevertheless have a right to win. It remains the judge’s duty, even in hard cases, to discover what the rights of the parties are, not to invent new rights retrospectively” (Dwork nel 1977, 81).

In “Hard Cases,” Dworkin distinguishes between two kinds of legal argument. Arguments of policy “justify a political decision by showing that the decision advances or protects some collective goal of the community as a whole” (Dwork nel 1977, 82). In contrasto, arguments of principle “justify a political decision by showing that the decision respects or secures some individual or group right” (Dwork nel 1977, 82).

Dal punto di vista di Dworkin, while the legislature may legitimately enact laws that are justified by arguments of policy, courts may not pursue such arguments in deciding cases. For a consequentialist argument of policy can never provide an adequate justification for deciding in favor of one party’s claim of right and against another party’s claim of right. An appeal to a pre-existing right, secondo Dworkin, can ultimately be justified only by an argument of principle. Così, insofar as judicial decisions necessarily adjudicate claims of right, they must ultimately be based on the moral principles that figure into the best justification of the legal practices considered as a whole.

Notice that Dworkin’s views on legal principles and judicial obligation are inconsistent with all three of legal positivism’s core commitments. Each contradicts the Conventionality Thesis insofar as judges are bound to interpret posited law in light of unposited moral principles. Each contradicts the Social Fact Thesis because these moral principles count as part of a community’s law regardless of whether they have been formally promulgated. Soprattutto, Dworkin’s view contradicts the Separability Thesis in that it seems to imply that some norms are necessarily valid in virtue of their moral content. It is his denial of the Separability Thesis that places Dworkin in the naturalist camp.

6. Riferimenti e approfondimenti
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Kenneth Einar Himma, "Positivismo, Naturalismo, e l'obbligo di rispettare la legge,"Giornale meridionale di filosofia, vol. 36, NO. 2 (Summer 1999)
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Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, “The Many Moral Realisms,” in Sayre-McCord (ed.), Essays on Moral Realism (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1988)
Informazioni sull'autore

Kenneth Einar Himma
E-mail: [email protected]
Università del Pacifico di Seattle
U. S. UN.