Conventions and The Normativity of Law
Abstract
This essay criticises the attempt to explain the so-called normativity of law with reference to a model of coordination conventions. After specifying the explanandum of the normativity of law, I lay out the conceptions of ‘coordination’ and ‘convention’ and how the combination of both sets out to contribute to legal philosophy. I then present two arguments against such an account. Firstly, along a reductio ad absurdum, I claim that if an account of coordination conventions tries to explain the normativity of law by focusing on a coordination problem among judges it leads to self-contradiction. Secondly, I argue that even if one allows for widening the coordination problem beyond the group of judges, one is unable to account for the notion of duty. I will substantiate this second argument by distinguishing different scopes of the deontic operator “ought”. I conclude by reconsidering what explaining the normativity of law could amount to.
Keywords
normativity of law | contingency of law | convention | coordination | legal positivism | rules of recognition | judicial duty | instrumental rationality | Normativität des Rechts | Kontingenz des Rechts | Konvention | Koordiation | Rechtspositivismus | Erkenntnisregel des Rechts | Richterliche Pflicht | instrumentelle Rationalität