General Norms and Rules

  • Dick W. P. Ruiter
Chapter
Part of the Law and Philosophy Library book series (LAPS, volume 18)

Abstract

Speech act theory as developed by Searle and Vanderveken concentrates on simple illocutionary acts that involve reference to a single object (‘Sam’) and the predication of simple expressions (‘to smoke regularly’), ignoring more complex types of subject expressions, relational predicate expressions, and molecular propositions.1 Moreover, the theory focuses on elementary illocutionary acts as distinguished from illocutionary acts obtained from elementary sentences by the application of illocutionary connectives.2 The reasons offered for these restrictions are that as long as the simple cases are unclear, it is hardly likely that the more complicated cases will be properly clarified (Searle), and that since elementary illocutionary acts are the constituents of complex ones, any analysis of the latter must start with the former (Vanderveken).

Keywords

General Norm Successful Performance Legal Rule Legal Norm Definite Description 
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References

  1. 1.
    Searle (1969), 33.Google Scholar
  2. 2.
    Vanderveken (1990), 25.Google Scholar
  3. 3.
    Ross (1968), 107–112.Google Scholar
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    Ibid., 108.Google Scholar
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    Von Wright (1963), 82.Google Scholar
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    Ross (1968), 111.Google Scholar
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    Searle and Vanderveken (1985), 5.Google Scholar
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    Vanderveken I (1990), 13.Google Scholar
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  26. 26.
    From this general characteristic the structure of conditional strong permissions can be derived without difficulty. As established in the previous chapter, strong permissions provide legal freedom to choose to do or to forbear from doing some act. This also applies to conditional strong permissions. We take the example: ‘If it starts raining, then Arnold may shut the window or leave it open.’ This sentence presents Arnold as being neither ordered to shut the window nor ordered to leave it open in case it starts raining: [~ORDER(it_starts_raining → SHUT_WINDOWarnold) ∧ ~ORDER(it_starts_raining ~SHUT_WINDOWarnold)].Google Scholar
  27. 27.
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  29. 29.
    Art. 1 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.Google Scholar
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    Searle (1969), 85, 101.Google Scholar
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    Ibid., 100.Google Scholar
  33. 33.
    Book 2, title 2, art. 2, sec. 1, Dutch Civil Code.Google Scholar
  34. 34.
    Art. 42, sec. 2, Dutch constitution.Google Scholar
  35. 35.
    See the impressive analysis of the German doctrine on social basic rights in Alexy (1986), 454–472. For the Dutch doctrine, C.A.J.M Kortmann, De Grondwetsherzieningen 1983 en 1987, sec. ed., Deventer, 1987, 112–146.Google Scholar
  36. 36.
    Actually, our attempt at classifying the norm must not be taken as a token of our approval that it was enacted. My effort to provide a wider framework that can be helpful in accounting for legal norms beyond the scope of the classical view on legal systems as systems of obligations does not mean that any legal norm whatsoever that fits into the framework is, therefore, an asset. I am of the opinion that provisions of the kind described above exceed the boundary of relevant law since it is impossible to envisage any form of general recognition on the side of the legal community through which it might achieve world-to-word success of fit on the declarative illocutionary point. A legal norm must stand this test to retain legal relevance.Google Scholar
  37. 37.
    W.N. Hohfeld, Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, ed. W.W. Cook, New Haven, 1919. Hohfeld interpreted, on the one hand, a legal obligation as a relationship between a party’s duty and a second party’s claim-right and, on the other, the lack of a legal obligation as a relationship between on party’s liberty-right and the lack of a claim-right on the part of the second party. His scheme does not account for the distinction between weak and strong permissions. Hohfeld’s square of norms of conduct, with the categories duty-claim-privilege(liberty)-no-claim, as well as the square of norms of competence, with the categories power-liability(subjection)-no-power-immunity, are still widely used, despite their shortcomings. This remarkable success must be ascribed primarily to their indisputable didactic elegance.Google Scholar
  38. 37a.
    See on Hohfeld’s distinctions A. Ross, On Law and Justice, London, 1958, 161 ff.; Ross (1968), 118 ff.; L. Lindahl (1977), 25–37, 203–210;Google Scholar
  39. 37b.
    J. Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, Oxford, 1980, 199;Google Scholar
  40. 37c.
    Michael D. Bayles, Principles of Law, Dordrecht, 1987, 84 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  41. 38.
    Art. 25, opening and sub c.Google Scholar
  42. 39.
    Art 14, sec. 2.Google Scholar
  43. 40.
    Art. 12, sec. 1.Google Scholar
  44. 41.
    Art. 12, sec. 2.Google Scholar
  45. 42.
    Art. 22, sec. 1.Google Scholar
  46. 43.
    The bilateral character of this general legal freedom is corroborated by the following two provisions concerning the same right of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights: ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.’ (Art. 20, UN Declaration of Human Rights.) Apparently, the second norm is considered to be implied in the related provision of the Covenant attended to in the main text.Google Scholar
  47. 44.
    Art. 23, sec. 2 and 3.Google Scholar
  48. 45.
    N. Luhmann, Rechtssystem und Rechtsdogmatik, Stuttgart, 1974, 15, indicates the ‘prohibition of negation’ (‘Negationsverbot’) as the most significant feature of the notion of dogmatics.Google Scholar
  49. 46.
    Sometimes reparations and compensations for harm caused by torts and breaches of contract are also conceived as negative legal sanctions. Since their classification depends on prevailing legal doctrine, we do not consider them further here.Google Scholar
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    Ross (1968), 114 (footnote).Google Scholar
  51. 48.
    Ibid., 114. Actually, Ross also distinguished a category of tertiary law, to wit, procedural law.Google Scholar
  52. 49.
    Hart (1961), 95; Ross (1968), 93.Google Scholar
  53. 50.
    Enforcement rules thus take the shape of what MacCormick has called ‘consequential rules’, that is: ‘rules of which an operative fact is that an instance of the institution exists.’ MacCormick and Weinberger (1986), 53.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1993

Authors and Affiliations

  • Dick W. P. Ruiter
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of Public Administration and Public PolicyUniversity of TwenteEnschedeThe Netherlands

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