Free Download Rodrigo Eduardo Sánchez Brigido, "Groups, Rules and Legal Practice"
English | 2010 | pages: 208 | ISBN: 9048187699, 9400732007 | PDF | 2,2 mb
Ever since Hart´s The Concept of Law, legal philosophers agree that the practice of law-applying officials is a fundamental aspect of law. Yet there is a huge disagreement on the nature of this practice. Is it a conventional practice? Is it like the practice that takes place, more generally, when there is a social rule in a group? Does it share the nature of collective intentional action? The book explores the main responses to these questions, and claims that they fail on two main counts: current theories do not explain officials´ beliefs that they are under a duty qua members of an institution, and they do not explain officials´ disagreement about the content of these institutional duties. Based on a particular theory of collective action, the author elaborates then an account of certain institutions, and claims that the practice is an institutional practice of sorts. This would explain officials´ beliefs in institutional duties, and officials´ disagreement about those duties.