This Article critiques Anthony Kronman’s book Max Weber, which provides an interpretation of Webe... more This Article critiques Anthony Kronman’s book Max Weber, which provides an interpretation of Weber’s social theory of law concerning positivism and legal rational authority. In particular, the three premises of Kronman’s thesis regarding social theory are considered and their weaknesses are explained. Through this critique, the Author argues that no good reason has been presented to accept that Weber’s positivist theory is of value
Written for a symposium in the University of San Diego Law School in September 2013 on Laurence C... more Written for a symposium in the University of San Diego Law School in September 2013 on Laurence Claus, Law’s Evolution and Human Understanding (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), this article appears in the final issue of volume 52 of the San Diego Law Review. With new illustrations and considerations suggested by the book, the article argues for a number of theses: “Because I/we say so” is never a reasonable ground or formulation of authoritative acts such as enactments or parental or other orders. The moral authority of rule makers is never peremptory in a binary (all or nothing) as distinct from presumptive and defeasible sense. Deliberation towards the exercise or acceptance of authority is never primarily a matter of prediction or predictability of action, and is always a matter, rather, of purpose, and of creation by intelligent design than of non-purposive evolution. Those who exercise authority have no right to be obeyed, and the persons with the right correlative to ...
This Article critiques Anthony Kronman’s book Max Weber, which provides an interpretation of Webe... more This Article critiques Anthony Kronman’s book Max Weber, which provides an interpretation of Weber’s social theory of law concerning positivism and legal rational authority. In particular, the three premises of Kronman’s thesis regarding social theory are considered and their weaknesses are explained. Through this critique, the Author argues that no good reason has been presented to accept that Weber’s positivist theory is of value
Written for a symposium in the University of San Diego Law School in September 2013 on Laurence C... more Written for a symposium in the University of San Diego Law School in September 2013 on Laurence Claus, Law’s Evolution and Human Understanding (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), this article appears in the final issue of volume 52 of the San Diego Law Review. With new illustrations and considerations suggested by the book, the article argues for a number of theses: “Because I/we say so” is never a reasonable ground or formulation of authoritative acts such as enactments or parental or other orders. The moral authority of rule makers is never peremptory in a binary (all or nothing) as distinct from presumptive and defeasible sense. Deliberation towards the exercise or acceptance of authority is never primarily a matter of prediction or predictability of action, and is always a matter, rather, of purpose, and of creation by intelligent design than of non-purposive evolution. Those who exercise authority have no right to be obeyed, and the persons with the right correlative to ...
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Papers by John Finnis