Between Facts and Norms - Contributions to a ... - Blogs Unpad

Postscript (1994)There is a sense in which an author first learns what he has said ina text from the reactions of his readers. In the process, he alsobecomes aware of what he meant to say, and he gains an opportunityto express more clearly what he wanted to say. I find myself inthis position hardly one year after the appearance of my book-andafter reading an array of intelligent, mainly sympathetic, and in anycase instructive reviews. Certainly the interpreter enjoys the advantageof understanding a text better than the author himself, but onthe occasion of a new printing, the author may be permitted to takethe role of an interpreter and attempt to recapitulate the core ideathat informs the whole book as he sees it. This also allows him toclear up some of the objections that have been raised in themeantime.1Modern law is formed by a system of norms that are coercive,positive, and, so it is claimed, freedom-guaranteeing. The formalproperties of coercion and positivity are associated with the claimto legitimacy: the fact that norms backed by the threat of statesanction stem from the changeable decisions of a political lawgiveris linked with the expectation that these norms guarantee theautonomy of all legal persons equally. This expectation of legitimacyis intertwined with the facticity of making and enforcing law.This connection is in turn mirrored in the ambivalent mode of