哈特是法律非认知论者吗?——以反对内在陈述的优先性为中心

Is Hart a Legal Non-Cognitivist?:An Objection to the Priority of Internal Statements

法律规则为人们的行为提供理由,但是如果法律陈述仅仅是对事实的描述,那么这种理由似乎无法为人们依据法律而行为提供动机。法律非认知论,尤其是表意主义将法理解为对特定规则接受的表达,而非对事实的中立描述。因此,法律陈述是不可认知的,不存在真假的区别。但是,将哈特的法理论认定为表意主义会面临两方面的困难:其一,表意主义需要证明内在陈述较之于外在陈述的优先性,但是这种论证将与哈特对法体系和承认规则性质的看法存在冲突;其二,将伦理学中的表意主义类比运用到法理论中,将忽视法与道德的不可类比之处,尤其是不能够解释法作为人造物的本体论属性。因此,无法将哈特的理论理解为表意主义,故而无法将其认定为法律非认知论者;同时,法律非认知论者将“法是什么”解释为“法被当成什么”,这种将法的本体论与认识论相分离的尝试至少在目前仍然是不成功的。

Legal rules offer reasons for action,but if legal statements are merely descriptions of facts,the reasons offered cannot motivate people to act in accordance with law.Legal non-cognitivism,expressivism in particular,hold that law is the expression of specific rule-acceptance,rather than neutral descriptions of certain facts.Thus,legal statements are not cognitive or truth-apt.However,couching Hart’s legal theory in expressivism faces a twofold predicament:firstly,expressivism rests on the priority of internal statements over external statements,yet this view contradicts with Hart’s theory of legal system and the nature of the rule of recognition;secondly,the analogy between expressivism as a moral doctrine and expressivism as a legal doctrine ignores serious disanalogies between the two doctrines.Especially it cannot explain the ontology of law as an artifact.Hence,we cannot define the Hartian theory as expressivism and Hart as a legal non-cognitivist.Meanwhile,by reducing the question of“what is law”to the question of“what is treated as law”,non-cognitivists try to separate the epistemology of law from the ontology.Unfortunately,this attempt has failed thus far.