The Law-Giver's Place: On the Unethical Quality of Legal Wisdom
| Author | Panu Minkkinen |
| Published date | 01 December 1993 |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399300200405 |
| Date | 01 December 1993 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
445
THE
LAW-GIVER’S
PLACE:
ON
THE
UNETHICAL
QUALITY
OF
LEGAL
WISDOM
PANU
MINKKINEN
University of Helsinki, Finland
I
Therefore
he
who
bids
the
law
rule
may
be
deemed
to
bid
God
and
Reason
alone
rule,
but
he
who
bids
man
rule
adds
an
element
of
the
beast;
for
desire
is
a
wild
beast,
and
passion
perverts
the
minds
of
rulers,
even
when
they
are
the
best
of
men.
The
law
is
reason
unaffected
by
desire.
(Aristotle,
Politica)
N
THE
jurisprudential
study
of
legal
phenomena,
the
relationship
between
law
and
critique
has
always
been
more
or
less
problematic.
A
genealogical
inquiry
of
the
Greek
adjective
kritikos will
ultimately
lead
to
tekhne
krinein.
If
we
are
to
understand
the
term
literally,
critique
is,
then,
the
art
of
discerning,
philosophical
judgment
or
reflection.
In
this
sense,
all
scientific
enterprise
must
necessarily
be
critical.
Within
jurispru-
dence,
however,
critique
has
almost
uniquely
come
to
mean
the
art
of
governing,
politikos.
Critical
legal
scholarship
is
understood
as
a
political
science,
a
dubious
alliance
uniting
the
objective
judgment
of
scientific
thought
and
the
subjective
prejudice
of
personal
commitment.
The
historical
development
of
the
legal
sciences
is,
indeed,
often
portrayed
as
a
succession
of
political
positions
from
which
the
legal
scholar
defines
herself
in
relation
to
a
normative
order.
Beginning
from
the
last
half
of
the
nineteenth
century,
the
jurisprudence
of
European
legal
thought
was
challenged
by
the
more
political
discourse
of
a
sociologically
inspired
way
SocIAL
&
LEGAL
STUDIES
(SAGE,
London,
Newbury
Park
and
New
Delhi),
Vol.
2
(1993),
445-459
.
°
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