Gus van Horn har henledt min opmærksomhed på en artikel om de amerikanske jurauddannelser og deres forhold til og indhold af filosofi; og ikke mindst, hvilken form for filosofisk retning man foretrækker.
Jeg kan især godt lide det her lille citat, som kan oversættes 100 % til Danmark:
I wondered immediately whether the observed high incidence of alcoholism among attorneys might perhaps be related to the lack of a cohesive philosophy of law. I mean, here we all were, starting in on studying torts, contracts, and the delicious but perilous intricacies of civil procedure, and we still hadn’t figured out what we, as nascent attorneys, were supposed to be studying, or why.
It took a whole year before I heard the question, “what is law?” or even the word, “philosophy,” in the classroom.
Og ja: Jeg er en af de få der faktisk synes, at retslære/retsfilosofi/retsteori (you name it) er spændende.
Jeg bliver endda næsten nødt til at citerer disse to passager, som skærer ud i pap forskellen mellem positivisme og den amerikanske progressive juridiske-teori:
The first is Positivism. This is the idea that there is no objective ought that can be applied to the law, and so the law must be treated simply as being what it is. And it is whatever the law maker says it is. Positivism is responsible for the extremely heavy weight given to precedent in the law. Read Marbury v. Madison … and you will find that Chief Justice Justice Marshall does not once cite precedent, even though there is relevant precedent, from the Court itself, to support him. Precedent is useful for maintaining uniformity in the law over time, but entirely useless if the object is to correct historically entrenched, bad law.
The other is Progressivism. Progressivism feeds on Positivism. If the law is only held accountable to itself, and can ultimately be whatever the law maker (Congress, the Framers, or the Majority by vote) decides it will be, then the fundamental, assumed premises on which the country was founded can be tweaked, manipulated, and eroded in the name of social engineering. … Positivism strips the ought from the law, and makes true that old maxim of legal education, “there is no right answer in the law,” so that Progressivism may manipulate the law and engineer society. If a law stands in the way of the Progressive social engineering goals, Positivism allows the law to be changed, without respect to reality to determine what the law ought to be.
Progressivism is the philosophy behind that half-remembered definition of law I heard in by business associations class. Law is no longer a means for controlling government, but a means for controlling individuals. And Positivism makes the rules arbitrary.
So true! Og det betyder jo så, at man i dag står med jurauddannelser — verden over velsagtens — hvor filosofi ikke længere er nødvendigt, al den stund, at loven — der hele tiden kan ændres — altid er og aldrig bør være noget andet. Men det har jo så mere at gøre med disse “progressive” ideer, end det har med positivismen at gøre – som artiklens forfatter også nævner.
Positivismen, som formuleret af H.L.A. Hart i The Concept of Law, er meget appellerende; især hvis man mener, at det er politikernes (… altså folkets… 
) ansvar at lovgive og ikke domstolene.
Så selvom min mavefornemmelse fra tid til anden fortæller mig, at Ronald Dworkin er på sporet af noget rigtigt i Law’s Empire (der arumgenterer for en juridisk fortolkningsstil, hvor ret og moral spiller sammen, sådan lidt i stil med klassisk liberalisme), må jeg knibe mig selv i armen og lige tænke over det en gang til:
For hvad er vigtigst? At lovgivningen lever op til et bestemt (lad os sige) frihedsideal, eller at lovgivningen er klar og forudberegnelig?
Da jeg foretrækker et menneskestyre over et idestyre vælger jeg selvfølgelig det sidste.
