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LAW-DETERMINATION AS GROUNDING: A COMMON GROUNDING FRAMEWORK FOR JURISPRUDENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2019

Samuele Chilovi Open the ORCID record for Samuele Chilovi [Opens in a new window]  and
George Pavlakos Open the ORCID record for George Pavlakos [Opens in a new window]
Samuele Chilovi
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Barcelona
George Pavlakos
Affiliation:
Professor of Law and Philosophy, School of Law, University of Glasgow
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Abstract

Law being a derivative feature of reality, it exists in virtue of more fundamental things, upon which it depends. This raises the question of what is the relation of dependence that holds between law and its more basic determinants. The primary aim of this paper is to argue that grounding is that relation. We first make a positive case for this claim, and then we defend it from the potential objection that the relevant relation is rather rational determination.1 Against this challenge, we argue that the apparent objection is really no objection, for on its best understanding, rational determination turns out to actually be grounding. Finally, we clarify the framework for theories on law-determination that results from embracing our view; by way of illustration, we offer a ground-theoretic interpretation of Hartian positivism and show how it can defuse an influential challenge to simple positivist accounts of law.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Theory , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 53 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

*

Many thanks to Ruth Chang, Mark Greenberg, Dan López de Sa, José Juan Moreso, Michele Palmira, Alexander Patsaouras, Jonathan Schaffer, Chiara Valentini, and Ariel Zylberman; to the participants at the Seminar in Metaphysics at the University of Barcelona; to the audiences of the Legal Theory Seminar at the University of Edinburgh, of the DM1: Metaphysics in the Law Workshop at the University of Barcelona, and of the Law and Philosophy Seminar at UCLA; as well as to the anonymous reviewers. S. Chilovi acknowledges the financial support of the project Derivative Metaphysics (project code: FFI2015-66372-P MINECO/FEDER, UE). G. Pavlakos acknowledges the generous financial support of a grant awarded by the Grant Agency of the Czech Academy of Sciences (grant ID: 15-23955 S).

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