RT info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPart
T1 Social Sciences and Jurisprudence Through Weberian and Hartian Eyes: Suggesting an Explanation for a Puzzle
A1 Bello Hutt, Donald Emerson
AB I here contrast Hart’s ruminations on the fact-value distinctionand on the concomitant participant/observer-internal/external-point-of-viewdivides (which are central to the concern of legal positivism with objectivity)with Max Weber’s take on the notion of objectivity in social sciences. Hart wasreluctant to admit any influence of the German sociologist in his elaboration ofthese categories, but, things are more complex than what largely bibliographicalremarks made by some commentators suggest (section 2). After positioningthis problem in the map of the secondary literature, I shall take my cue fromBrian Leiter’s critique of Finnis’ claim that the knowledge of legal phenomenarequires the use of practical reason, and that this take was first advanced byWeber. Leiter’s critique is important, but there are Weberian insights whichcould be of more value for positivists than what Leiter’s discussion allow(section 3).The suggested explanation to which my title alludes is the following: Hart’sreluctance to admit Weber as a relevant influence, is (or could be) explaineddue to an important difference in the ways in which both authors sought tomaintain the distinctiveness of their disciplines, and on how they understoodthe nature or features of participants and their role in examining the objectunder scrutiny. Although Weber’s social scientist participates in the selectionand conceptual framing of the scientific object according to her values and/or culture, she takes a larger distance with regard to it than some prominentHartian participants, i.e., officials, do in the determination of what counts ornot as law or legal. In a nutshell, although both authors would agree that noknowledge is ‘presuppositionless’, Weberian social scientists do not ‘bringabout’ their object in the same way that Hartian officials identify and createlaw (section 4).This leads to a conclusion that is dependent upon an exegetical reading ofThe Concept of Law: Hart’s hypothetical acceptance of a Weberian influencewould have been to an important extent incompatible with his methodologicalcommitment to descriptivism (section 5).
PB Edward Elgar
SN 978 1 80392 262 1
YR 2022
FD 2022
LK https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/83023
UL https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/83023
LA spa
NO Objectivity in Jurisprudence, Legal Interpretation and Practical Reasoning, Cheltenham, 2022, 86 - 104
NO Producción Científica
DS UVaDOC
RD 26-feb-2026