The Nature of Law and Legal Systems

We sought to compare the implicit and explicit views of a group of Muslim graduates on the fairness of Islamic law. In this preliminary investigation, we used the Electroencephalographic N400 Event Related Potential to detect the participant’s implicit beliefs. It was found that the majority of participants, eight out of ten, implicitly held that Islamic Law was unfair despite explicitly stating the opposite. In seeking to understand what separated these eight participants from the remaining two – the two who both (...) implicitly and explicitly held that Islamic Law was fair – only two distinguishing characteristics could be identified. Both participants had undertaken an in-depth study of a branch of Islamic law that places the spirit of the law above that of a literal interpretation. They had also attended the same seminary, exclusive to the other participants. Of the eight participants, it was discovered that, while they implicitly held Islamic law to be unfair, they also held it to be rational – in the same way they found that it was rational to push a person of a ship in order to save the remaining from drowning, yet unfair. We discuss these preliminary findings and consider theories on how an innate sense of fairness, an aspect of nativism, may come into play when it is not congruent with a participant’s own beliefs. Further, we ask, where such an inconsistency occurs, how does the mind attempt to rectify it – if at all? As a possible contribution to the discussion on theories of nativism vs. empiricism we put forward a hypothesis and methodology for investigation that may produce previously unconsidered data on human nature. (shrink)

This paper considers the connections between the Statehood/recognition debate in international law and social ontology. I aim to show that certain theories of social ontology, which I call Groupjective Internalism, can be used to defend Constitutive Theories of Statehood. Among philosophers whom I consider committed to Groupjective Internalism are major figures in the field: Searle, Gilbert and Tuomela. This is an interesting result as Constitutive Theories are generally looked upon with suspicion in international law.

Most legal and political philosophers agree that typical legal systems are coercive. But there is no extant account of what typically makes typical legal systems coercive when they are coercive. This paper presents such an account and compares it with four alternative views. Towards the end I discuss the proposed account’s payoffs. Among other things, I show how it can help us explain what I call ‘comparative judgements’ about coercive legal systems (judgements such as ‘Legal system a is more coercive (...) than legal system b’) and how it can help the development of social scientific inquiries into the coerciveness of our legal systems. (shrink)

The assumption that coercion is largely responsible for our legal systems’ efficacy is a common one. I argue that this assumption is false. But I do so indirectly, by objecting to a thesis I call “(Compliance)”, which holds that most citizens comply with most legal mandates most of the time at least partly in virtue of being motivated by legal systems’ threats of sanctions and other unwelcome consequences. The relationship between (Compliance) and the efficacy of legal systems is explained in (...) section 1. There I also show that (Compliance) must be rejected for it relies on unsubstantiated empirical assumptions. In section 2, I claim that an alternative, and more refined, formulation of (Compliance) also lacks adequate support. I conclude with a few general remarks about the centrality of coercion in our thought and talk about legal systems. (shrink)

Legal and political controversies persist about the performance of Kelsenian-type constitutional courts in democratic systems. One of the reasons is that the design of these institutions cannot easily accommodate simultaneous but conflicting demands for the strong protection of democracy and human rights, judicial independence and constitutional restraint. Challenging the dominant approach to the design of contemporary constitutional courts, this article proposes a new way to balance these three values through reforms to the structure of Kelsenian institutions. The proposal seeks to (...) institutionalize constitutional restraint, embedding it into courts’ internal functioning rules while, concurrently, emancipating constitutional judges from political control through a reform of appointment procedures. It is argued that the combined effects of these two reforms will produce constitutional courts that are more independent and able to protect the core elements of a democratic political community while, at the same time, increasing constitutional deference to the democratically elected legislator. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly expected to disrupt the ordinary functioning of society. From how we fight wars or govern society, to how we work and play, and from how we create to how we teach and learn, there is almost no field of human activity which is believed to be entirely immune from the impact of this emerging technology. This poses a multifaceted problem when it comes to designing and understanding regulatory responses to AI. This article aims to: (i) (...) defend the need for a novel conceptual model for understanding the systemic legal disruption caused by new technologies such as AI; (ii) to situate this model in relation to preceding debates about the interaction of regulation with new technologies (particularly the ‘cyberlaw’ and ‘robolaw’ debates); and (iii) to set out a detailed model for understanding the legal disruption precipitated by AI, examining both pathways stemming from new affordances that can give rise to a regulatory ‘disruptive moment’, as well as the Legal Development, Displacement or Destruction that can ensue. The article proposes that this model of legal disruption can be broadly generalisable to understanding the legal effects and challenges of other emerging technologies. (shrink)

The debate between natural law and positivist law has been received much attention. Ronald Dworkin exposes the limitation of positivist law through the argument of hard cases. This argument is furthered strengthened when we apply the interpretation of Martin Luther King Jr and the voluntarist natural law tradition, and Lon Fuller’s ‘procedural view’ and the application of the ‘principles of legality’.

Argues that reasons internalism, suitably understood, explains categorical reasons for us to cooperate with each other. The norms we then cooperate to satisfy can lie at the heart of legal systems, yielding unexpected implications in the philosophy of law.

Die Disziplin, die als „Juristische Methodenlehre“ bezeichnet wird, ist gegenwärtig chinesischen Juristen nicht fremd, sie stammt aber ursprünglich aus dem deutschen Sprachraum. In der Literatur finden sich auch verwandte Ausdrücke wie „Juristische Methodologie“, „Juristische Methodik“ bzw.„Methodenlehre der Rechtswissenschaft“. Seit Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts wurde ihre Rezeption in China durch zwei Übersetzungen gekennzeichnet, nämlich die „rechtswissenschaftliche Methodenlehre“ (faxue fangfalun) und die „rechtliche Methodenlehre“ (falü fangfalun). Neben der herkömmlichen Methodenlehre entwickelte sich auch eine jüngere Theorie der juristischen Argumentation, die die weltweite Aufmerksamkeit (...) sogar außerhalb Deutschlands auf sich lenken konnte und deren Bestand in China einen ganz selbständigen Abschnitt verdient. Als Hintergrund dafür soll von vornherein ein Blick auf die Entwicklungen der chinesischen Rechtstheorie und Rechtsphilosophie nach 1978 und demzufolge auf die Entstehung der Methodenfrage in der chinesischen Rechtswissenschaft geworfen werden. (shrink)

Nearly thirty years ago, Robert Alexy in his book The Concept and Validity of Law as well as in other early articles raised non-positivistic arguments in the Continental European tradition against legal positivism in general, which was assumed to be held by, among others, John Austin, Hans Kelsen and H.L.A. Hart. The core thesis of legal positivism that was being discussed among contemporary German jurists, just as with their Anglo- American counterparts, is the claim that there is no necessary connection (...) between law and morality. Robert Alexy has argued, however, that the law, besides consisting conceptually of elements of authoritative issuance and social efficacy, necessarily lays a claim to substantial correctness, which is derived from analytical arguments. Furthermore, if this claim to substantial correctness necessarily requires the incorporation of moral elements into law, then the ‘necessary connection thesis’, as defended by non-positivism, can be justified. Some of the most significant objections to this sort of claim, stemming from the Anglo-American world, are those introduced by Joseph Raz. In his ‘Reply’ to Robert Alexy, Raz raises at least three interesting criticisms, including, first, the ambiguity of ‘legal theory in the positivistic tradition’, second, the indeterminate formulations of the ‘separation thesis’, and, third, the necessary claim of law to legitimate authority as a moral claim. As a point of departure, I will argue that Raz’s three criticisms are misleading. For they do not enhance our understanding of the genuine compatibility or incompatibility between legal positivism and non-positivism. Despite the frequently reformulated theses of legal positivism and the various kinds of opponents responding thereto, the essential divergence between legal positivism and non-positivism was and remains the answer to the question of the relation between law and morality. Furthermore, I will clarify that in the strictest sense there can be three and only three logically possible positions concerning the relation between law and morality: the connection between them is either necessary, or impossible (i. e. they are necessarily separate), or contingent (i. e. they are neither necessarily connected nor necessarily separate). The first position is non-positivistic, while the latter two positions are, indeed, both positivistic, but in different forms: one may be called ‘exclusive’ legal positivism, the other ‘inclusive’ legal positivism. I will continue by showing that these three positions stand to one another in the relation of contraries, not contradictories, and that, taken together, they exhaust the logically possible positions concerning the relation between law and morality, never mind the tradition or authority from which these positions are derived. Raz mentions, however, many changeable formulations of the separation thesis, which even leads him to acknowledge ‘necessary connections between law and morality’. One who is trying to understand legal positivism would no doubt be puzzled by this claim. Nevertheless, I will argue that this is an alternative strategy of legal positivism, and it points to naturalistically oriented view. Although this necessary separation between law and morality, understood naturalistically, strikes one as strengthening the separation, in the end it leads to a weakened notion of necessity. This weakened necessary separation thesis, however, cannot be justified through the so-called claim of the law to legitimate authority, defended by Raz, for it is difficult to answer the question of whether a normally justified but factual authority can gain legitimate authority. Finally, the necessary connection between law and morality in a strong sense can still be justified by the claim of law to correctness, as per Alexy’s argument. (shrink)

According to the an influential and intuitively appealing argument (the Continuity Argument): (1) morality is usually continuous, namely, a gradual change in one morally significant factor triggers a gradual change in another; (2) the law should usually track morality; (3) therefore, the law should often be continuous. This argument is illustrated by cases such as the following example: since the moral difference between a defensive action that is reasonable and one that is just short of being reasonable is small, the (...) law should not impose a severe punishment when the action is almost reasonable and no punishment at all when action is reasonable (as positive law sometimes does). In this paper, I consider two doubts regarding this argument. First, the premise that morality is continuous in such cases is incompatible with the common view that the moral status of actions is not continuous since there is an important difference between actions that are permissible and actions that are wrong – even if this difference is due to a difference that is very small, such as the one between an action whose consequences are the best and an action whose consequences are just slightly less good. This view extends also to the overall moral status of agents given the common assumption that it depends on the moral status of their actions. This is an important challenge that the Continuity Argument should confront. However, I argue that the best account of morality is more scalar than the common view in these respects. Therefore, I conclude that the first premise of the Continuity Argument is correct in this regard, although it is based on a minority view. The second doubt concerns the scope of the second premise: since there are both reasons in favor and reasons against legal continuity, and the applicability and force of these reasons depend not only on various moral propositions but also on contingent non-moral facts, we lack the evidence to determine the degree to which the law, at a certain place and time, should be continuous and specifically that it should be often continuous. (shrink)

Since at least the 1980s, police departments in the United States have embraced a set of practices that aim, not to enable the prosecution of past criminal activity, but to discourage people from breaking the law in the first place. It is not clear that these practices effectively lower the crime rate. However, whatever its effect on the crime rate, I argue that preventive policing is essentially distinct from legal governance, and that excessive reliance on preventive policing undermines legal governance. (...) To show this, I emphasize law’s unique aptitude to define legal subjects’ ‘manifest’ status relations – that is, the rights and obligations that live within their local practices. I then argue, first, that preventive policing does not aim to define these relationships; and second, that excessive preventive policing threatens the relationship that law must bear with its subjects if law is to define their manifest relations authoritatively. (shrink)

Commentary on Crowe's metaethics and his theory of law as a goodness-fixing kind.

This volume contains the proceedings of the Social Ontology, Normativity, and Philosophy of Law conference, which took place on May 30–31, 2019 at the University of Glasgow. At the invitation of the Social Ontology Research Group, a panel of prominent scholars shed light on a range of key topics within social ontology, normativity, and philosophy of law from an interdisciplinary perspective.

In order to show the validity of here proposed conception of social ontology and its advantages over descriptive theories of social reality, which in the analysis of the socio-ontological status of human rights find only legally understood normativity as present in social reality, we will first lay out Searle’s interpretation of human rights. In the second step, we will introduce the methodical approach and basic concepts of our socio-ontological position, and explain the structure of the relationship between justice, law, morality, (...) social institutions and collective intentionality. At the end we will show how our theory of social ontology is better than Searle’s legal positivism in examining the ontological status of human rights. At the end, we show in what ways such a theory of social ontology more intuitively and with wider arguments explains the ontological status of institution of human rights than Searle’s legal positivism. (shrink)

In order to show the validity of here proposed conception of social ontology and its advantages over descriptive theories of social reality, which in the analysis of the socio-ontological status of human rights find only legally understood normativity as present in social reality, we will first lay out Searle’s interpretation of human rights. In the second step, we will introduce the methodical approach and basic concepts of our socio-ontological position, and explain the structure of the relationship between justice, law, morality, (...) social institutions and collective intentionality. At the end we will show how our theory of social ontology is better than Searle’s legal positivism in examining the ontological status of human rights. At the end, we show in what ways such a theory of social ontology more intuitively and with wider arguments explains the ontological status of institution of human rights than Searle’s legal positivism. (shrink)

A critical analysis of Kelsen’s theory leads to a broad concept of custom, which covers diverse types of customary norms, where the always required conviction of legal bindingness depends on different types of factual and normative reasons. In it we should include a strict concept of custom or legal usage, derogating custom, custom of general international law, custom that establishes an unwritten constitution, custom that establishes a new written constitution, judicial custom which creates a rule of precedent and custom newly (...) expressed in the judicial application of customary rules. The basic norm could be formulated as a constitutive norm: ‘If the norms created through the first historical constitution are effective, then the first historical constitution are valid.’ It is thus a customary constitutive rule that recognizes the first historical constitution as valid law. Norms which establish sources of law are constitutive rules, they can be customary norms or legislated norms, but if they are legislated, they have their validity recognized by, directly or indirectly, a constitutive customary norm. By using a broad concept of custom as a conventional practice, Hart implies that general recognition of a customary rule, together with the practice that accompanies it, are sufficient conditions of validity. A doctrine of recognition that is arrived at by means of criticism and a rational reconstruction of the doctrines of Kelsen and Hart regains the essential theses of the traditional recognition theory of Bierling and Engisch. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this study is to consider the complementarity of ethics and law with regard to the problem of their common existence in society through the identification of common and different characteristics in the philosophy of I. Kant. -/- Design/methodology/approach This study is based on the observation that in modern society ethics and law remain the main social regulators and their co-existence requires the definition of their interaction and complementarity. Also, as this problem is closely related to issues (...) of freedom and obligation, it is necessary to show their role in ethics and law. -/- Findings The results show that the complementarity of ethics and law is due to the obligation that unites them, and the categorical imperative is the only postulate of ethics and the rights to execute, which allows a person to always remain worthy of his name. Ethics also has the meaning of legal capacity, and law means the recognition of people moral independence by public authorities. Thus, the law must protect a person not only from arbitrariness on the part of other people but also from the state power. -/- Originality/value This paper uses a philosophical approach, the utility of which is that ethics and law are studied as elements of normative regulation system of the society in terms of the phenomenal and noumenal nature of a man. It is proposed to consider ethics and law not only as different social regulators, which have their own specifics but also as complementary elements of a single social being, which should exist together and not attempt to substitute one another. (shrink)

The chief concern of the paper is to initiate discussion on the difference between the private and public power of judgement. The inspiration comes from Kant and his conception of the power of judgement, customs, morality and provisional law.

In this paper, I defend the possibility that law is a functional kind by replying to objections from Leslie Green and Brian Tamanaha. I also show how Kenneth Ehrenberg’s approach to law’s functions in his latest book concedes too much to these objections. A functional kinds approach to law is possible and, for someone interested in showing the importance of law’s functions, preferable. I first explore Tamanaha’s objection and show that the possibility of functional equivalents does not pose a problem (...) for a functional kinds account of law. I then respond to Green by showing that law is more distinctively identified by its function than by the means by which it achieves this function. I quickly explore a lesser objection dealing with how law can pursue a variety of ends while having the same function the whole while. I then turn to an issue Ehrenberg raises regarding thinking of the law as having a plurality of functions like a Swiss Army knife. Finally, I show that Ehrenberg’s approach to the relationship between law and its functions is unnecessarily weak, as it avoids holding that law's nature or essence is its proper function for similar reasons to Green and Tamanaha. (shrink)

This contribution develops two objections to Hans Lindahl’s legal philosophy, as exhibited in his Authority and the Globalization of Inclusion and Exclusion. First, his conception of constituent power overstates the necessity of violence in initiating collective action. Second, his rejection of the distinction between participatory and representative democracy on the grounds that participation is representation is misleading, and compromises our ability to differentiate qualitatively among various forms of (purportedly) democratic involvement. Both problems stem from the same root. They result from (...) conflating two distinct senses of ‘representation’: acting-for-someone (or representative agency) and portraying-something-as-something (or representation-as). (shrink)

The famous mid-20th century debate between Patrick Devlin and Herbert Hart about the relationship between law and morality addressed the limits of the criminal law in the context of a proposal by the Wolfenden Committee to decriminalize male homosexual activity in private. The original exchanges and subsequent contributions to the debate have been significantly constrained by the terms in which the debate was framed: a focus on criminal law in general and sexual offences in particular; a preoccupation with the so-called (...) “harm principle,” a sharp delineation of the realms of law and morality, and a static conception of the relationship between them. This article explores the limitations imposed by these various starting-points and argues for a holistic and symbiotic understanding of the relationship between law and morality. (shrink)

Der Streit zwischen Naturrecht und Rechtspositivismus im 20. Jahrhundert fördert unterschiedliche Konzeptionen des positiven Rechts und seiner Funktion zutage. Der Aufsatz geht von H.L.A. Harts Kritik am traditionellen Naturrecht aus und zeigt, dass diese an dem vorbeigeht, was dort zum Verhältnis von Recht und Moral behauptet wird. Mit Rückgriff auf Aristoteles wird dafür argumentiert, das Recht als eine institutionalisierte Praxis zu verstehen, die wesentlich auch eine erzieherische Funktion hat. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird klar, inwiefern aus naturrechtlicher Sicht gesetzliches Unrecht, zwar (...) nicht die Gültigkeit, wohl aber die Verbindlichkeit von Gesetzen unterminieren kann. Die naturrechtliche Konzeption des Rechts erweist sich zudem im Vergleich zu der Harts auch als phänomenal akkurater. (shrink)

One of the best-known members of the United Nations Commission which drafted the 1948 "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," Jacques Maritain, famously held that the "natural rights" or "human rights" possessed by every human being are grounded and justified by reference to the natural law.' In many quarters today, the notion of the natural law, and arguments for a set of natural rights grounded in the natural law, have come under fierce attack. One common line of attack is illustrated by (...) the arguments of some utilitarians, for whom "natural law thinking" is mistaken insofar as it implies that there is an absolute moral prohibition against violating any human being's "natural rights." Even if there is such a thing as "natural rights," these utilitarians argue, such rights - including even the natural "right to life" - are necessarily relational, and thus have meaning only within the context of a larger social whole. As a result, the argument goes, the supposed "natural rights" possessed by individual human beings are never inviolable or unconditional, but instead always negotiable and subject to being "traded away" for the sake of greater social utility. Consider just one alleged counter-example to the notion that there are inviolable or unconditional "natural rights": it is well-known that approximately 36,000 people in the United States die every year as a result of influenza infections or influenza-related complications.' There is little doubt that hundreds, and probably even thousands, of human lives would be saved every year if local governments were to pass laws requiring flu vaccinations for all members of at-risk populations (e.g., the very young and the very elderly). It would seem that there would be broad support for mandated flu vaccinations- no matter what the expense - if human lives would be saved and if the natural "right to life" is inviolable or unconditional.' And yet no such life-saving laws exist, apparently because citizens and legislators believe that the social costs and inconveniences would be too great. According to the utilitarian position, this demonstrates - contrary to what Ronald Dworkin and others say about rights' - that rights do not trump utility, but in fact are quite regularly and reasonably trumped by utility. In light of such contemporary understandings and policies, can natural law thinking about natural rights be made credible? In what follows, I shall argue that utilitarian thinkers are correct to hold that rights are intrinsically relational; but they are wrong to conclude that the relational character of rights entails that "natural rights" are not inviolable or not unconditional. (shrink)

In this paper, the author suggest that the historical and institutional conditions of existence of the concepts which animate legal argumentation – like the historical and institutional conditions of existence of certain forms of law – are of interest not only in their own right, but also because they raise methodological issues for jurisprudence. These include questions about the relationship between concepts and the social phenomena which they purport to categorise; about the relationship between philosophical and other forms of legal (...) theory; and about how a jurisprudence largely dominated by philosophical methods may be brought into productive dialogue with other forms of theoretical analysis. Only by broadening both its horizons and its methods, the author argues, will jurisprudence be capable of illuminating not only doctrinal analysis within particular jurisdictions at particular times, but also comparative and historical scholarship. (shrink)

In response to a climate in which respect for international law and the law of the European Union is rapidly losing ground, Paul Gragl advocates for the revival of legal monism as a solution to potentially irresolvable normative conflicts between different bodies of law. In this first comprehensive monograph on the theory as envisaged by the Pure Theory of Law of the Vienna School of Jurisprudence, the author defends legal monism against the competing theories of dualism and pluralism. -/- Drawing (...) on philosophical, epistemological, legal, moral, and political arguments, this book argues that only monism under the primacy of international law takes the law and the concept of legal validity seriously. On a practical level, it offers policy-makers and decision-makers methods of dealing with current problems and a means to restore respect for international law and peaceful international relations. While having the potential to revive and elicit further interest and research in monism and the Pure Theory of Law, the comprehensiveness and scope of the book also make it a choice text for inter-disciplinary scholars. (shrink)

The article proposes a comparison between certain aspects of Samuel Pufendorf's (1632-1694) conception of natural law and certain aspects of John Searle's social ontology. As in Pufendorf the entia moralia are superimposed on the entia physica, of which they constitute modes that ground systems of norms (natural or positive), so in Searle the institutional facts that are created by certain speech acts of the performative type are superimposed on the physical facts. The difference between Pufendorf and Searle is that the (...) latter understands all institutional facts as extrinsic to the physical facts (as a consequence of the peculiarity of their self-referentiality). For Pufendorf, on the other hand, moral modes are intrinsic to certain entia physica endowed with reason and will, whereas certain legal relations, like property, are extrinsic. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper I reassess the place of Plato’s Laws in the history of legal thought. The Laws has been traditionally considered to present a natural law theory of law. I argue instead that it presents a positivist account of the nature of law. Through analysis of some key passages of the Laws I argue that in that dialogue law is identified with conclusions of enkratic civic reason that may systematically conflict with precepts of substantive moral reason. I also argue (...) that in the Laws the rule of law is a precondition of a legal system but lacks inherent moral significance. For the rule of law to obtain there needs to be some compromise between the political interests of rulers and subjects which is grounded on political pragmatism and not on moral considerations. (shrink)

Si esaminano gli argomenti di Trasimaco (anche alla luce della posizione di Callicle) e, segnatamente, il rapporto tra la legge e il potere costituito: il raffronto con il pensiero di Carl Schmitt prende avvio dal nodo centrale del significato attribuito al νόμος. Si analizzano le argomentazione nei dialoghi platonici per ricostruire la concezione del νόμος e gli elementi che possono fornire risposte indirette alla questione posta da Trasimaco, al di là della ricerca della definizione del concetto di giustizia, con particolare (...) attenzione alla legge ed alle forme di governo. Si esamina la relazione tra le tesi sulla sovranità elaborate da Schmitt e le teorie sul potere rintracciabili nelle posizioni di Trasimaco e di Callicle in rapporto ai frammenti di Pindaro ed Eraclito. Considerata la centralità della relazione amico-nemico nel pensiero di Schmitt, posta a confronto con le posizioni platoniche, si esamina la distinzione tra la concezione della legge come atto cognitivo di scoperta della verità e la sua fondazione sul principio della decisione da parte di chi detenga il potere sovrano, punto di arrivo dello sviluppo delle tesi hobbesiane da parte di Schmitt. (shrink)

Lettura prospettica di un caposaldo del pensiero hobbesiano: il sorgere del rapporto tra l'uomo ed il potere, tra la naturale condizione umana e la nozione di civiltà, attraverso due frammenti particolarmente rappresentativi della concezione hobbesiana del passaggio dallo stato di natura alla civiltà: il tredicesimo capitolo del Leviathan, sulla condizione naturale dell'uomo, ed il quinto capitolo, sulle cause ed origini della civitas, del De cive, giacché la mera esistenza dell'uomo ed il suo riconoscimento di una legge naturale, a giudizio di (...) Hobbes, non implica affatto necessariamente una qualsiasi forma consolidata di organizzazione sociale. Sebbene il De cive (pubblicato in latino nel 1642 e, in inglese, nel 1651) preceda cronologicamente il Leviathan (pubblicato, viceversa, dapprima in inglese, nel 1651, poi in latino, nel 1668), nell'ordine logico dell'esposizione qui presentata, il brano del Leviathan può essere considerato propedeutico al quinto capitolo del De cive, delineandone i presupposti, segnatamente la condizione di continuo pericolo per tutti causata dallo stato generale di reciproca guerra, che costituisce forse l'aspetto più noto (e frainteso) del pensiero hobbesiano. Per una migliore comprensione dei testi e delle differenti (spesso opposte) interpretazioni cui hanno dato vita, si è ritenuto di proporre, per quanto concerne i brani di Hobbes, tanto la loro traduzione in lingua italiana quanto le stesure originali in latino e inglese, presentate con i testi a fronte; tale scelta fornisce l'opportunità di osservare l'accurata scelta di alcuni dei vocaboli chiave della filosofia di Hobbes, la cui trasposizione da una lingua all'altra è stata spesso causa di fraintendimenti o volgarizzazioni in tutto o in parte ingiustificate. Allo scopo di offrire una più completa prospettiva del pensiero hobbesiano delineato nei brani selezionati, si è ritenuto di affiancare ad essi dei frammenti di interpreti novecenteschi (con delle sintetiche schede bio-bibliografiche) di alcuni concetti formulati da Hobbes e, segnatamente, di F. Tönnies, M. Horkheimer, L. Strauss, C. Schmitt, T. Parsons, N. Bobbio, H. Warrender. (shrink)