Law, Love and Legality

Abstract

The argument of this paper is that our lives have meaning because theyare structured by rules which are open to the outside, through which theoutside can reflexively fold back into the rules so that it canregenerate and transform them. It is this process that constitutes theunity and integrity of our lives and gives them coherence. Our lives donot have certainty in the sense that there is always a definite answeras to how we should live. It is in the reflexive unity of law and lovethat we have the confidence to respond to the outside and create andtransform our narratives, however dangerous that may seem. We might callthis ``legality'' – the ability to go beyond the law at theappropriate time. In this sense then, it is a creative activity and isto be distinguished from legalism, which thinks that following the rulesis all that there is. But following the rules is important, for it isonly in following them and being faithful to them that we gain theunderstanding of when to break them. That creativity, which stems fromthe precarious linking of the arbitrary and the structured, might leadus to think of legality as a form of anarchy – not of thenihilistic variety but of the ability creatively to break the law andthus regenerate it.