Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-2024
Abstract
Legal norms serve as practical standards for individuals and officials. While this ‘normative aspect’ of law is widely acknowledged, its significance for theories of law remains contested. In this paper, I examine three views on the matter. First, that we should explain legal norms as reason-giving. Second, that we should explain legal discourse as being about reasons for action. Third, that we should explain law as capable of being reason-giving. I survey some challenges associated with each of these views. What they have in common is an implicit assumption about the form that normative explanation must take: that it must be a linear, non-reductive explanation. There is an alternative model for normative explanation available, however. That model explains normative notions in terms of the practices and attitudes involved in recognizing, offering, and demanding them. I highlight the potentials, and limitations, of this practice-centered alternative.
Recommended Citation
Diamond, Alma. “Shadows or Forgeries? Explaining Legal Normativity.” Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence 37, no. 1 (2024): 47–78. https://doi.org/10.1017/cjlj.2024.1.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Comments
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of University of Western Ontario (Faculty of Law). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited, originally published as:
Diamond, Alma. “Shadows or Forgeries? Explaining Legal Normativity.” Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence 37, no. 1 (2024): 47–78. https://doi.org/10.1017/cjlj.2024.1.