Alf Ross

Dzieła

• 1951Tû-tû

  Krótki esej o wymyślonym ludzie z wyspy, który wierzy, że kto złamie tabu, staje się „tû-tû” i musi zostać oczyszczony: słowa prawne, takie jak „własność”, również same w sobie do niczego się nie odnoszą, lecz wiążą pewne fakty z pewnymi konsekwencjami.

• 1953Om ret og retfærdighed (O prawie i sprawiedliwości)

  Systematyczna teoria prawa skandynawskiego realizmu: prawem obowiązującym jest zbiór norm, które sędziowie rzeczywiście odczuwają jako wiążące i stosują, więc twierdzenia o prawie obowiązującym są przewidywaniami orzeczeń sądów; „sprawiedliwość” bez dalszej treści wyraża emocje.

Stanowisko

Ross is on the map as a leading, systematic theorist of Scandinavian legal realism, which joined Hägerström’s critique of metaphysics with the empiricism of the Vienna Circle. In “On Law and Justice” (1953) he defined valid law as the set of norms that actually operate in the minds of judges, who feel bound by them and apply them; a statement about valid law is therefore a prediction, with a certain probability, of how the courts will decide. Concepts such as ownership or claim refer to nothing in themselves – his essay “Tû-Tû” compares them to the taboo word of an invented tribe – but serve to link sets of facts with sets of legal consequences. Natural law and appeals to “justice” without further content he regarded as expressions of emotion that can be used to justify any demand. In logic he observed that from “you ought to post the letter” one seems entitled to infer “you ought to post the letter or burn it”; this “Ross’s paradox” became a test case for deontic logic. H. L. A. Hart’s review of 1959 questioned whether legal validity can be reduced to predictions and feelings of being bound, a debate that shaped legal philosophy after both. Ross also wrote influential books on democracy and on international law.

Życie i kontekst

Alf Ross was born on 10 June 1899 in Copenhagen and studied law there, graduating in 1922. He then worked in Vienna with Hans Kelsen, whose pure theory of law shaped his early thought. When the University of Copenhagen rejected his dissertation on the sources of law, he went to Uppsala, where he studied with Axel Hägerström and took a doctorate in philosophy in 1929; Copenhagen awarded him a doctorate in law in 1934. From 1938 to 1969 he was professor at the law faculty of the University of Copenhagen, teaching constitutional and international law and legal philosophy. From 1959 to 1971 he was a judge of the European Court of Human Rights. He died in Copenhagen on 17 August 1979.

Dalsze główne dzieła

• Theorie der Rechtsquellen (1929)
• Virkelighed og Gyldighed i Retslæren (1934)
• Imperatives and Logic (Theoria 7, 1941)
• Hvorfor Demokrati? (1946; Why Democracy?, 1952)
• Om ret og retfærdighed (1953; On Law and Justice, 1958)
• Directives and Norms (1968)