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Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy

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Issue 3, 2014 Expand all abstracts
Miscellaneous

Access_open Wetenschap als kunstwerk: In Memoriam Willem Witteveen

Authors Sanne Taekema and Bart van Klink
Author's information

Sanne Taekema
Sanne Taekema is Professor of Jurisprudence, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University of Rotterdam. Her current research is oriented to the rule of law in a global context and to methodological and conceptual issues pertaining to interdisciplinary rule of law.

Bart van Klink
Bart van Klink is Professor of Legal Methodology at the VU University Amsterdam.
Introduction

Access_open Kristen Rundle: Legal Subjects and Juridical Persons: Developing Public Legal Theory through Fuller and Arendt

Keywords Fuller, Arendt, Rundle
Authors Morag Goodwin, Michiel Besters and Rudolf Rijgersberg
AbstractAuthor's information

    Introduction to this special issue of NJLP.


Morag Goodwin
Morag Goodwin is Associate Professor of International Law at Tilburg University; m.e.a.goodwin@uvt.nl.

Michiel Besters
Michiel Besters is a Ph.D. researcher in Legal Philosophy at Tilburg University; m.besters@uvt.nl.

Rudolf Rijgersberg
Rudolf Rijgersberg is Assistant Professor of Foundation and Methods of Law at Maastricht University; rudolf.rijgersberg@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
Article

Access_open Legal Subjects and Juridical Persons: Developing Public Legal Theory through Fuller and Arendt

Keywords Fuller, Arendt, legal subject, juridical person, public rule of law theory
Authors Kristen Rundle
AbstractAuthor's information

    The ‘public’ character of the kind of rule of law theorizing with which Lon Fuller was engaged is signalled especially in his attention to the very notion of being a ’legal subject’ at all. This point is central to the aim of this paper to explore the animating commitments, of substance and method alike, of a particular direction of legal theorizing: one which commences its inquiry from an assessment of conditions of personhood within a public legal frame. Opening up this inquiry to resources beyond Fuller, the paper makes a novel move in its consideration of how the political theorist Hannah Arendt’s reflections on the ‘juridical person’ might aid a legal theoretical enterprise of this kind.


Kristen Rundle
Kristen Rundle is Senior Lecturer of Law at the University of New South Wales; k.rundle@unsw.edu.au
Article

Access_open Political Jurisprudence or Institutional Normativism? Maintaining the Difference Between Arendt and Fuller

Keywords Arendt, Fuller, Hobbes, political jurisprudence, political freedom, authority, legality
Authors Michael Wilkinson
AbstractAuthor's information

    Can jurisprudence fruitfully pursue a synthesis of Arendt’s political theory and Fuller’s normative legal philosophy? Might their ideas of the juridical person and the legal subject be aligned as a result of a shared concern for the value of legality, specifically of an institutional complex which is structured through the stability and predictability of the rule of law? It is doubtful that Arendt's concern for the phenomena of plurality, political freedom and action can usefully be brought into line with Fuller's normativist focus on legality, subjectivity and the inner morality of law. This doubt is explored by juxtaposing Arendt's theory of action and her remarks on the revolution, foundation and augmentation of power and authority with Fuller's philosophy that, however critical of its positivist adversaries, remains ultimately tied to a Hobbesian tradition which views authority and power in abstract, hierarchical and individualist terms.


Michael Wilkinson
Michael Wilkinson is Associate Professor of Law at the London School of Economics; m.wilkinson@lse.ac.uk
Article

Access_open Lawyers Doing Philosophy

Keywords human agency, legal doctrine, command theory of law, Fuller, Arendt
Authors Pauline Westerman
AbstractAuthor's information

    Rundle criticizes the command conception of law by means of Fuller’s and Arendt’s concept of human agency. However, neither of these two authors derive law from human agency, as Rundle seems to think. Instead they stress that personhood can only be attributed to physical human beings on the basis of law. Moreover, their theories cannot be understood as answers to Rundle’s question – whatever that may be – but as answers to their own questions and concerns. In the case of Arendt and Fuller, these concerns were so different that the enterprise to reconcile them seems futile. Rundle’s approach can be understood as the attempt to deal with philosophy as if it were legal doctrine.


Pauline Westerman
Pauline Westerman is Professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Groningen; p.c.westerman@rug.nl
Article

Access_open The Experience of Legal Injustice

Keywords legal injustice, legal subject, law and morality, Fuller, Arendt
Authors Wouter Veraart
AbstractAuthor's information

    This paper shows that Fuller and Arendt converge on a different point than the point Rundle focuses on. What Fuller and Arendt seem to share in their legal thoughts is not so much an interest in the experience of law-as-such (the interaction between responsible agency and law as a complex institution), but rather an interest in the junction of law and injustice. By not sufficiently focusing on the experience of legal injustice, Rundle overlooks an important point of divergence between Arendt and Fuller. In particular, Arendt differs from Fuller in her conviction that ‘injustice in a legal form’ is an integral part of modern legal systems.


Wouter Veraart
Wouter Veraart is Professor of Legal Philosophy and Director of Research at the Free University Amsterdam; w.j.veraart@vu.nl.
Article

Access_open Fuller and Arendt: A Happy Marriage? Comment on Rundle

Keywords Fuller, Arendt, Radbruch, legal certainty
Authors Thomas Mertens
AbstractAuthor's information

    In her paper, Rundle seeks to develop a normative legal theory that is distinctively public. Building on her book, Forms Liberate, she seeks to bring Fuller’s legal theory into conversation with Arendt’s political theory. In this comment, I present some hesitations with regard to the fruitfulness of this conversation. It concludes with the suggestion to explore how Radbruch’s ‘idea of law’ could be fruitful for the overall jurisprudential project Rundle seeks to develop in her work.


Thomas Mertens
Thomas Mertens is Professor of Philosophy of Law at Radboud University Nijmegen; t.mertens@jur.ru.nl
Article

Access_open Reply

Keywords Fuller, Arendt, normativism, methodology, the rule of law
Authors Kristen Rundle
AbstractAuthor's information

    Author’s reply to four commentaries on ‘Legal Subjects and Juridical Persons: Developing Public Legal Theory through Fuller and Arendt.’


Kristen Rundle
Kristen Rundle is Senior Lecturer of Law at the University of New South Wales; k.rundle@unsw.edu.au