Show description

I. Justice, Law, Legitimacy For the purpose of this paper, we may think of justice as that part of morality that, directly or indirectly, applies to social norms, which may or may not conform with what we believe justice requires. Moreover, ‘justice’ is meant to refer to a set of substantive moral demands and not just to a merely formal requirement of universalizability. e. to existing systems of social rules that require and (in many cases) enforce compliance and punish non-compliance. More specifically, I shall conceive of positive law in the way Herbert Hart did, viz.

2008), Die Tora in jüdischer Auslegung, Gütersloh. 25 Rawls, John, supra note 9, 29 n. 31 and 150. 26 Sen, Amartya, supra note 19, 103 ff. 27 Or is it merely a shortfall from an ideal of gender equality about which reasonable people may disagree? A second limitation of Minimalism results from the hermeneutics of norm application. Two people who recognize a norm as a valid principle of conduct, may nevertheless give different interpretations of it in contested cases depending on how they understand the intentions and reasons behind the norm in the light of their more comprehensive normative beliefs.

Those who recognize the norm as a standard believe that they should act in conformity with the norm and take the very existence of the norm as a reason to act accordingly. They also believe that a violation of the norm is a reason for criticism and, in some cases, for punishment. Note, that this understanding of normative authority – unlike the first one that focuses on effective control and the risk of punishment – essentially refers to subjective beliefs and attitudes that those who are subjected to a norm, say by an established legal system, may or may not have.