Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2012
Publication Information
57 Am. J. Juris. 111 (2012)
Abstract
There are indeed two normative orders. But not "coexisting" in the sense that French law coexists with English law, and English law with international law, and all of them with canon law. No, the relation between the normative orders is much more intimate than "coexistence" (in the focal sense of that term). The one is a necessary source of the full validity, and strategically important parts, of the other, and is a real but much less straightforward source (by determinatio) of all its other legitimate parts; and is also an ever-present source of legitimate, and in extreme cases delegitimising criticism of the other (the positive law). Thus "coexistence" can be predicated of the two, but does not articulate their relationship in the best way-best for the purposes of lawyers and judges and those doing "theory of law" (such as the theorists of law gathered at Frankfurt for the meeting of the international philosophy of law association) in the footsteps of Heraclitus, Aristotle, and Aquinas.
Recommended Citation
John M. Finnis,
Coexisting Normative Orders? Yes, but No,
57 Am. J. Juris. 111 (2012).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/1087
