Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Legal Order: Morphological Levels

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Legal Order

Part of the book series: Law and Philosophy Library ((LAPS,volume 123))

Abstract

In this chapter and chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 the morphological J-concepts are examined, taking legal order as the fundamental juridical concept. In this chapter studies the notion of legal order. For this purpose the author uses an analogy with the distinction within linguistics between accidence and syntax. A legal order is a hierarchy of five levels, where the syntax on a given level is the syntax for the accidence on all lower levels and the accidence for all higher levels. The lowest level is pure accidence, the highest level is pure syntax. The first level concerns the lowest common denominators of a legal order, which are taken to be elementary legal positions (like elementary Hohfeld elements). The second level are compound legal positions constructed out of basic ones (e.g., property and marriage). The third level is that of legal rules (in which compound legal relations are prominent components), and here a detailed taxonomy of them is presented by means of a standard form for each type of legal rule. The fourth level is the level of legal systems. Here several different relations between legal rules are explored (such as logical and genetic relations). It is argued that all legal rules are (deontic) norms and that all legal rules are different kinds of mandatory (duty-imposing) norms. The fifth level is that of the legal order itself, which is taken to be a feedback type of relation between a set of legal rules (a legal system) and a legal organisation consisting of certain compound legal relations such that rules in the legal system constitute the organisation and the function of the legal organisation is to handle (create, apply) rules in the system. A section is devoted to soft law.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Hume (1984), p. 464 f.

  2. 2.

    See the close analysis of this concept in Spaak (1994).

  3. 3.

    Kelsen (1992), p. 10 f.

  4. 4.

    Ross (1959), pp. 29 and 35.

  5. 5.

    Searle (1969), p. 50 ff. See also Searle (1995).

  6. 6.

    MacCormick and Weinberger (1986).

  7. 7.

    See, e.g., Ross (1959), p. 77.

  8. 8.

    Ross (1959), p. 77.

  9. 9.

    Cf. MacCormick and Summers (1991), p. 475 f.

  10. 10.

    Ross (1959), p. 78.

  11. 11.

    See the close analysis of the concept “position” in Lindahl (1977).

  12. 12.

    Kanger and Kanger (1966), pp. 85–115.

  13. 13.

    Hohfeld (1917).

  14. 14.

    Kanger and Kanger (1966), p. 91.

  15. 15.

    Wellman (1978), p. 218 f.

  16. 16.

    Cf. the excellent work of Atienza and Ruiz Manero (1998), where we find a similar approach to the study of legal rules (they prefer, though, the term “legal sentence”). In contrast to this writer they regard legal sentences as “the most elementary units of law” (p. xi).

  17. 17.

    See von Wright (1963), p. 6 f.

  18. 18.

    Raz (1980), p. 172 ff. In Raz (1975, reprinted 1990), p. 89, however, he regards also permission-granting laws as norms.

  19. 19.

    Alchourrón and Bulygin (1971), p. 58 f.

  20. 20.

    Atienza and Ruiz Manero (1998), p. 45.

  21. 21.

    See further Westerman (2010), pp. 211–226. Westerman does not use the term “goal-directive”, she talks in a more general way about “goal-regulation” (which term I have borrowed here).

  22. 22.

    See Spaak (1994).

  23. 23.

    Bentham (1970), pp. 17 and 22.

  24. 24.

    See von Wright (1963), p. 192.

  25. 25.

    Alchourrón and Bulygin (1971), p. 151 f.

  26. 26.

    Kanger (1972), p. 125 f.

  27. 27.

    Spaak (1994), p. 80-87.

  28. 28.

    Ross (1959), p. 32.

  29. 29.

    Strömberg (1988), p. 57.

  30. 30.

    Eckhoff and Sundby (1991), p. 100 f.

  31. 31.

    Searle (1969), pp. 33–36.

  32. 32.

    See von Wright (1963), p. 9 ff.

  33. 33.

    Atienza and Ruiz Manero (1998), p. 61 f.

  34. 34.

    Atienza and Ruiz Manero (1998), p. 59.

  35. 35.

    Spaak (1994), p. 178.

  36. 36.

    Hart (1994), p. 28.

  37. 37.

    Hart (1994), p. 27.

  38. 38.

    Raz (1998), p. 452 f.

  39. 39.

    Spaak (1994), p. 17 ff.

  40. 40.

    The term coined by Prof. Tore Strömberg, Lund.

  41. 41.

    Valuable contributions to the investigation of goal-regulation have been presented by Westerman (2010) which contains further references.

  42. 42.

    Westerman (2010), p. 216.

  43. 43.

    For a survey, see Sundby (1968), p. 72-107.

  44. 44.

    Cf. Frändberg (2014), Chs. 2 and 9.

  45. 45.

    Frändberg (2014) pp. 177 f.

  46. 46.

    Cf. Frändberg (2014) Section 9.2. In order to save my readers the trouble to turn to that book I repeat myself a little here.

References

  • Alchourrón CE, Bulygin E (1971) Normative systems. Springer, Berlin

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Atienza M, Ruiz Manero J (1998) A theory of legal sentences. Springer, Berlin

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bentham J (1970) Of laws in general (The collected works of Jeremy Bentham: principles of legislation). Athlone Press, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Eckhoff T, Sundby NK (1991) Rettssystemer (Legal systems), 2nd edn

    Google Scholar 

  • Frändberg Å (2014) From Rechtsstaat to universal law-state. Springer, Berlin

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hart HLA (1994) The concept of law, 2nd edn. Clarendon Press, Wotton-under-Edge

    Google Scholar 

  • Hohfeld WN (1917) Fundamental legal conceptions as applied in judicial reasoning. Yale Law J 26:710 ff

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hume D (1984) In: Mossner EC (ed) A treatise of human nature (1739–40). Clarendon Press, Wotton-under-Edge

    Google Scholar 

  • Kanger S, Kanger H (1966) Rights and parliamentarism. Theoria 32:85–115

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kanger S (1972) Law and logic. Theoria 38:105–132

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kelsen H (1992) Introduction to the problems of legal theory, translated from German by B. Litschewski Paulson and S. L. Paulson

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindahl L (1977) Position and change, a study in law and logic. Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • MacCormick N, Weinberger O (1986) An institutional theory of law. New approaches to legal positivism. Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • MacCormick DN, Summers RS (1991) Interpreting statutes. A comparative study. Routledge, Abingdon

    Google Scholar 

  • Raz J (1975, reprinted 1990) Practical reason and norms, Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Raz J (1980) The concept of a legal system, 2nd edn. Clarendon Press, Wotton-under-Edge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Raz J (1998) Voluntary obligations and normative powers. In: Paulson SL, Litschewski Paulson B (eds) Normativity and norms. Critical perspectives on kelsenian themes. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p 452 f

    Google Scholar 

  • Ross A (1959) On law and justice. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd, Clark

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle J (1969) Speech acts. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Searle J (1995) The construction of social reality. Free Press, Florence

    Google Scholar 

  • Spaak T (1994) The concept of legal competence. Dartmouth Pub Co, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Strömberg T (1988) Rättsordningens byggstenar (the building stones of the legal order). Studentlitteratur, Lund

    Google Scholar 

  • Sundby NK (1968) Legal right in Scandinavian analyses. Nat Law Forum 13:72–107

    Google Scholar 

  • von Wright GH (1963) Norm and action. Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Wellman C (1978) Legal rights, in Uppsalaskolan - och efteråt (The Uppsala School of Legal Philosophy – and afterwards), Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. In: Symposia Universitatis Upsaliensis Annum Quingentesimum Celebrantis, vol 6. pp 213–221

    Google Scholar 

  • Westerman P (2010) Arguing about goals: the diminishing scope of legal reasoning. Argumentation 24:211–226

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Åke Frändberg

Authors
  1. Åke Frändberg
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Frändberg, Å. (2018). The Legal Order: Morphological Levels. In: The Legal Order. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 123. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78858-6_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78858-6_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78857-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78858-6

  • eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation