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Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy

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Issue 3, 2009 Expand all abstracts
Editorial

Access_open Honeste vivere

Keywords ethics and law, banking law, juridification, Höffe, ethical principles
Authors Dr. mr. Jonathan Soeharno
AbstractAuthor's information

    In this editorial Soeharno takes a critical stand on the juridification of ethical principles within banking law. He argues that the legal incorporation of ethical principles, such as ‘integrity’ or ‘prudence’, is counter-productive. Within a legal context, these principles acquire a strictly legal significance and will be deprived of their essentially ethical character.


Dr. mr. Jonathan Soeharno
Jonathan Soeharno is Doctor of Laws and lawyer at De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, Amsterdam and fellow at the Montaigne Centre for Judicial Administration and Conflict Resolution, Utrecht University.
Article

Access_open Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach: In Need of a Moral Epistemology?

Keywords Martha Nussbaum, Capabilities Approach, moral epistemology, objectivity, residues of justice, Bernard Williams, political moralism
Authors Mr. Iris van Domselaar
AbstractAuthor's information

    Although Nussbaum’s “Capabilities Approach” (CA) clearly expresses a commitment to objectivity, this article argues that this commitment is rather ambiguous due to the conception of public reason it endorses. In particular, the CA cannot account for an objective justification of public reason, given certain characteristics of public reason. As a result, the CA jeopardizes the substantive aim it has set itself: to provide an objective justification for public choices regarding human capabilities and their specifications.


Mr. Iris van Domselaar
Iris van Domselaar is a Ph.D-student and lecturer at the Department of General Jurisprudence, Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam. The subject of her thesis is “Residues of Justice and Tragic Legal Choice in a Liberal Rule of Law”.
Article

Access_open Het normatieve karakter van de rechtswetenschap: recht als oordeel

Keywords legal theory, science, methodology, normativity, knowledge
Authors Prof. mr. Carel Smith
AbstractAuthor's information

    Propositions of law are based upon normative judgement. The interpretation and application of legal provisions rest upon a judgement that determines which weight must be attributed to some point of view or perspective. In this respect, legal theory has a normative character. Its normative character does not preclude legal theory from being a scientific discipline. The scientific character of legal theory is not located in the possibility of testing the correctness of its theories. Rather, legal theory owes it scientific character to the shared standards of production and evaluation of legal arguments: the grammar of justice.


Prof. mr. Carel Smith
Carel Smith is associate professor at the Department of Metajuridica, Faculty of Law, Leiden University.
Article

Access_open Wetenschappelijke rechtsgeleerdheid

Commentaar op het preadvies van Carel Smith

Keywords law and hermeneutics, law and normativity, one right answer thesis, legal jurisprudence, legal doctrine
Authors Prof. dr. Arend Soeteman
AbstractAuthor's information

    This article is a comment on Carel Smith’s paper. Smith rightly argues that the study of law has a hermeneutic character. But his interpretation of legal hermeneutics includes the thesis that in hard cases there is no right or true legal decision. This seems to have negative implications for the scholarly character of the study of law: in hard cases any solution goes. This paper argues, against Smith, that the study of law defends right answers for hard cases. It is also normative in another sense: legal answers, in easy cases as well as in hard cases, always presuppose a normative interpretation of the legal sources. This contributes to the differences of opinion under lawyers. But it is no obstacle to the scholarly character of the study of law, as long as a rational debate about these legal answers and the underlying values and principles is possible. Smith’s rejection of the right answer thesis, however, prevents the possibility of such a rational debate.


Prof. dr. Arend Soeteman
Arend Soeteman is professor at the Faculty of Law, VU University Amsterdam.
Article

Access_open Over de wetenschappelijkheid van de rechtswetenschap

Keywords legal science, empirical science, law and astronomy, mathematical logic, game theory
Authors Mr. Boudewijn de Bruin
AbstractAuthor's information

    This article provides an outsider perspective on the scientificity of legal studies. First, I argue that the presence of controversies does not mean that legal studies lack the status of a genuine science. Astronomy, mathematics, and economics have their controversies, too. Second, I show that non-empirical, non-normative research is no less scientific than empirical research. This is illustrated by work in mathematical logic. Third, I demonstrate the same claim for non-empirical, normative research.Here the example is research on social contract theories by means of gametheoretic models.


Mr. Boudewijn de Bruin
Boudewijn de Bruin is assistant professor in the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Groningen.
Article

Access_open Lettres Persanes 14

Oorlog is natuurlijk erger dan een zoekgeraakte koffer. Staking, geweld en rechtsorde

Keywords law and politics, right to strike, exceptionalism, Benjamin, political action
Authors Dr. mr. Klaas Tindemans
AbstractAuthor's information

    This article discusses the right to strike, with special regard to Belgium. Referring to Walter Benjamin, Tindemans argues that strikes are rechtsetzend rather than rechtserhaltend; they constitute a legal order rather than preserve one. Strikes are exceptional phenomena within any legal system, as they do not fit normal criteria of legal validity. According to Tindemans, strikes are to be considered primarily as extralegal phenomena, as means in a political struggle, confronting the “police” of the core institutions of the state and the legal order. Strikes are political actions, moments of collective aspiration towards political equality, and as such threaten the “pureness” of the legal order in favour of a fragmented politics.


Dr. mr. Klaas Tindemans
Klaas Tindemans is Doctor of Laws and a playwright. He teaches at the RITS, school for audiovisual and performing arts, Erasmushogeschool Brussels.
Book Review

Access_open Ben Golder & Peter Fitzpatrick, Foucault’s Law

Keywords Foucault, supression thesis
Authors Mr. dr. Marc de Wilde
AbstractAuthor's information

    Marc de Wilde, book review of Ben Golder & Peter Fitzpatrick, Foucault’s Law. Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2009


Mr. dr. Marc de Wilde
Marc de Wilde is assistant professor at the Department of Legal History, University of Amsterdam.
Book Review

Access_open Giorgio Agamben, Le règne et la gloire. Homo sacer (II, 2)

Keywords political theology, economic theology, Schmitt, Peterson
Authors Dr. mr. Thom Holterman
AbstractAuthor's information

    Thom Holterman, book review of Giorgio Agamben, Le règne et la gloire. Homo sacer (II, 2). Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2008


Dr. mr. Thom Holterman
Thom Holterman is Doctor of Laws and lives in Urciers, France.
Book Review

Access_open Gerard Drosterij, Politics as jurisdiction: a new understanding of public and private in political theory

Keywords public, private, adjudication, methodic individualism
Authors Prof. mr. Herman van Gunsteren
AbstractAuthor's information

    Herman van Gunsteren, book review of Gerard Drosterij, Politics as jurisdiction: a new understanding of public and private in political theory. Muiderberg: Eberson, 2008


Prof. mr. Herman van Gunsteren
Herman van Gunsteren is professor emeritus of Political and Legal Philosophy at Leiden University.
Book Review

Access_open Jon Elster, Reason and Rationality

Keywords methodic individualism, choice theory
Authors Dr. mr. Bertjan Wolthuis
AbstractAuthor's information

    Bertjan Wolthuis, book review of Jon Elster, Reason and Rationality, translated by Steven Rendall. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009


Dr. mr. Bertjan Wolthuis
Bertjan Wolthuis is assistant professor at the Department of Legal Philosophy, VU University Amsterdam.

Citation format

Would you like to cite a publication in the Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy? You could do this in the following way:

Christoph Kletzer, ‘Absolute Positivism’, NJLP 2013/2 p. 87-99