The normative sense of the concept of law part II - systematic considerations
Abstract
Modern philosophy left us with an unbridgeable divide between factual reality
and the domain of values (normativity). This article first of all analyze modal
norms, such as the principle of avoiding what is legally excessive. There are
distinct but mutually cohering kinds of laws. The distinction between modal
laws / norms and type laws / norms required an example from the domain of
human society – John Locke and Adam Smith, whose ideas in practice gave
birth to trade unionism and labour parties. The idea of an “invisible hand”
(manifest in the “free market”) operates with exact (natural) laws, such as
supply and demand. When modal norms are distinguished from type norms it
becomes clear that states and a business enterprises can act uneconomically
by wasting their money although they ought to function in a way that is guided
by economic considerations of frugality. As an example the well-known natural
law of energy-conservation is explained as the embodiment of an analogical
link between the physical aspect and the kinematic aspect which should rather
be designated as the law of energy-constancy. Finally the problem of
normativity is related to the coherence between the logical-analytical aspect
and its coherence with the aspects of number and space – focused on the
principle of the excluded middle and its implications for diverging schools of
thought within twentieth century mathematics. The last subsection concludes
with reference to the norms guiding technological developments and with an
assessment of the meaning of technology.
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- Faculty of Humanities [2033]