Scott Veitch, LAW AND IRRESPONSIBILITY: ON THE LEGITIMATION OF HUMAN SUFFERING Abingdon: Routledge-Cavendish (www.routledgelaw.com), 2007. x + 157 pp. ISBN 9780415442510 (pb). £21.99.
| Author | Emmanuel Melissaris |
| Date | 01 May 2009 |
| Pages | 341-343 |
| Published date | 01 May 2009 |
| DOI | 10.3366/E1364980909001541 |
Much of contemporary legal and political theory is motivated and haunted by fear: the fear that, left to our own devices, we shall regress to a state of nature, where our external freedom would meet no constraints and violence would be the only way of settling our conflicts. And therapeutic resort to this predicament is usually sought in the law. The law is seen as imposing those necessary external constraints, as setting objective and correct standards (however their correctness may be determined), which will either tame our natural instincts of self-preservation or instantiate politics in a way that will allow reason to triumph and pave the path to the kingdom of ends. Very importantly, the law is entrusted with compensating for the fragility of our social and political arrangements. It does so not least by allocating responsibility and responding to wrongdoing by force, thus restoring a sense of moral balance as well as releasing us from the uncertainty of whether we have fulfilled our moral duties or not.
It is hardly surprising that such an attitude is displayed by those who presuppose from the outset an image of human nature which goes back to the Hobbesian version of the Enlightenment. The Leviathan state and its law contain and constrain our passions. More strikingly though, the same fear and the same faith in law, despite it being by and large a heteronomous order, seem to haunt those with more faith in reason and in our ability to form a moral community for selfless rather than self-interested reasons. Take Jürgen Habermas’ discourse theory for example. Although for Habermas politics rests on the requirements of free discourse, he is still loath to leave everything up to politics. Instead, he promotes the law as the best medium of social integration in modern conditions.
In
To continue reading
Request your trial