社会事实、价值与法律的规范性

Social Facts,Values and the Normativity of Law

当代法律实证主义者主张,法律的规范性是法理论需要说明的首要议题。同时,他们坚持对法律规范性要求的识别标准,完全是由社会事实所决定。这就是社会事实命题。然而,将法律视为规范性实践,意味着法律是能够向人们提供行动理由的事实。对这种事实给予充分理解,一方面必须说明它是如何与某些深层价值保持关联的,另一方面必须说明在每个具体情境下,它是如何对具体的行动给予指引的。德沃金所提炼的理论争议显示出,实证主义无法确保由社会事实确定的法律规范,在错综复杂的法律实践中,始终和深层价值保持必要的关联。而实证主义要避免陷入这种争议,对法律规范性的说明就只能停留在抽象、一般的层面上,这又导致法律的规范性变得空洞。这说明,法律实证主义无法维护社会事实命题。法理论必须在一个基本的实践哲学框架下才能完成自己的使命。

Modem legal positivism claims that legal normativity is the primary issue of jurisprudential discussion. Meanwhile, it insists that, under legal normativity, the criteria of le- gality are social facts and only social facts. That is the social facts thesis. However, seeing the law as a normative practice suggests that, under the rule of law, the law should have the ability to guide human actions. And to support this supposition, legal positivism needs to deal with two questions. On the one hand, it needs to explain how the law is linked to values held by individ- uals or society; on the other hand, it needs to provide arguments on how the law guides each in- dividual action under each specific condition. Dworkin~ theoretical disagreement shows that le- gal positivism cannot ensure that legal norms as defined by social facts are always able to main- tain the necessary link with values held by society in complicated legal practice. To avoid falling into this controversy, legal positivism can explain legal normativity only at the abstract or gener- al level, which in turn could make the discussion of legal normativity sound rather thin. Thus, it seems that legal positivism cannot defend its social facts thesis. A theory of law can complete its mission only within the framework of practical philosophy.