Positive Law

Rather than seeing law as a vague norm or overly precise and possibly untenable rights this article argues for a simpler functionalist definition of law as a set of conditionals associated with imperatives. As such it hopes to bypass two fruitless parallel debates which however do not address each other: 1) the nature of norms 2) the nature of rights.

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Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher in the Late Sixteenth to Early Seventeenth Centuries and he is best known for his book Leviathan. In this book he presents what is commonly referred to as the first ‘Social Contract Theory,’ rather ‘Social Covenant Theory.’ He also compares the notions of ‘Justice’ and ‘Injustice’ within a state of nature to a state under a sovereign. In this essay, I shall define Hobbes’ social theory and provide contextual differences of his view of nature versus a state of a single sovereign government. Lastly, I will provide my contentions with Hobbes’ philosophical positions.

This work continues the research started in "Positività e Giurisprudenza. Teoria e prassi della formazione giudiziale del diritto" (see other uploads), looking at the various ways in which law gains its status of "positive"  in the contemporary globalized world. It brings some more evidence for criticising the traditional mono-typical view of "law positivization", arguing for a "pluri-typical" approach: law acquires its positive status through very different ways, each of them asking for specific critical evaluation.
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This Article explores the unacknowledged impact of the scientific provenance of modern law. Justice, I argue, is threatened by social scientific thinking that subordinates justice to legitimacy, efficiency, and fairness. In doing so, I contest the conventional wisdom that positive law originates not with science but with democracy. In addition, I show that the power of the asserted connection between positive law and democracy depends upon a dangerous blurring of the distinction between justice and legitimacy. Finally, I offer an alternative genealogy of positive law that shows modern law to have been transformed into a science. My hope is that by pointing to the threatened loss of justice as an ideal, my work can help to hold open the possibility that law reclaim its foundation in the art of judgment instead of the science of law.

Éste artículo tiene como objeto hacer una re-exposición de la teoría política de Baruch Espinosa (1632-1677) a la luz de su ontología –entendida ésta como una ontología materialista. Por lo tanto, se hará una interpretación materialista de la teoría política éste filósofo, desde un acercamiento al «Materialismo Filosófico» de Gustavo Bueno –específicamente, desde su filosofía política, como «materialismo político». Para esto, exploraremos brevemente ciertas ideas de su Tratado Político –teniendo en cuenta, desde luego, la Ética y el Tratado Teológico-Político. Lidiaremos con ideas como «derecho natural», «Estado» o «Libertad», u otras ideas que irán saliendo a través de estas y que junto a la construcción de unas, dialécticamente criticará y destruirá otras –como «Pueblo», «Voluntad», «monarquía absoluta» etc.

(The Political Ontology of Espinosa)
The aim of this article is the reexposition of Baruch Espinosa's (1632-1677) political theory, in the light of his ontology –understood as a materialist ontology. Therefore, we will make a materialist interpretation of the political theory of this philosopher, from an approach to Gustavo Bueno's «Philosophical Materialism» –specifically, from his political philosophy, as a «political materialism». For that goal, we will briefly explore certain ideas from his Political Treatise –of course, with the help of other works, like the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and the Ethics. We will deal with ideas like «natural law», «State», «Freedom», and other ideas that may arise from those and in which construction, they dialectically criticize and destroy others –v.g., «People», «Will», «absolute monarchy» and so on.

This essay explores the emergence of a science of law through a close reading of Nietzsche’s writings on law and art. Against the belief that scientific truth leads to justice, Nietzsche affirms the necessity of illusion and error. The essay argues that Nietzsche’s reconceptualization of law as a work of art opens the possibility of a non-positivist idea of law beyond science, morality, and politics.

The Lutheran Reformation transformed not only theology and the church but law and the state as well.  Beginning in the 1520s, Luther joined up with various jurists and political leaders to craft ambitious legal reforms of church, state, and society on the strength of the new Protestant theology.  These legal reforms were defined and defended in hundreds of monographs, pamphlets, and sermons published by Luther and his many followers from the 1520s onward.  They were refined and routinized in hundreds of new reformation ordinances promulgated by German polities that converted to the Lutheran cause.  By the time of the Peace of Augsburg (1555)--the imperial law that temporarily settled the constitutional order of Germany--the Lutheran Reformation had brought fundamental changes to theology and law, to church and state, marriage and family, education and charity.

This Article analyzes the transformation of Western legal philosophy in the sixteenth-century Lutheran Reformation, with a focus on the legal thought of theologian Martin Luther, moral philosopher Philip Melanchthon, and legal theorist Johann Oldendorp. Starting with Luther's two kingdoms theory, Melanchton developed an intricate theory of natural law based not only on the law written on the hearts of all persons, but also on the law rewritten in the Decalogue, whose two tables provided the founding principles of religious law and civil law respectively. Building on both Luther and Melanchthon, Oldendorp developed an original theory of equity and equitable law making and law enforcement as part of a broader biblical-based theory of natural law. Together these writers, laid the foundations for a new legal, political, and social theory which dominated Lutheran Germany and Scandinavia for the next three centuries.

Abstract: Nell’ampia letteratura che, nel corso degli ultimi decenni, ha esplorato a fondo le pieghe degli scritti bobbiani, affiora soltanto a tratti un’indagine sistematica dei rapporti del filosofo torinese con i classici del pensiero filosofico-politico e filosofico-giuridico moderno. Il presente contributo suggerisce l’esigenza di una nuova attenzione in tal senso: in particolare, esso muove da una ricognizione analitica dei sei lavori raccolti nel volume "Da Hobbes a Marx. Saggi di storia della filosofia", nel quale Bobbio raccolse ricerche concepite nell’arco di quindici anni di insegnamento universitario e di cui nel 2015 ricorrerà il cinquantenario. È in quelle pagine, infatti, che il filosofo torinese, in un’Italia appena uscita dal conflitto mondiale e alla ricerca della propria identità politico-culturale dopo l’esperienza del Fascismo, guardò retrospettivamente alle origini contraddittorie della modernità mappandone, proprio come un cartografo, elementi di continuità e rottura – in primo luogo, l’oscillazione tra il primato del diritto naturale, da una parte, e l’egemonia dello jus positum, dall’altra. Proprio questa profonda (e mai appagata) ricerca di senso circa le ragioni della crisi culturale del proprio tempo ispira il confronto di Bobbio con «le due grandi concezioni mondane della storia» – il giusnaturalismo e lo storicismo dialettico – che a suo avviso innervano lo sviluppo tutt’altro che lineare della modernità e che, di riflesso, orientano il suo confronto con il pensiero di Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Hegel e Marx attraverso le acquisizioni della più recente storiografia filosofica italiana e internazionale di quegli anni.

Table of contents:
1. Bobbio e i moderni: testi e contesti
2. Giusnaturalismo e storicismo dialettico: i due volti della modernità
3. Il pensiero giuridico hobbesiano sotto processo: un 'cavallo di Troia' nella cittadella giusnaturalistica?
4. Dal giusnaturalismo impuro di Hobbes a quello pienamente moderno di Locke
5. Da Locke a Kant: la costruzione della libertà dei moderni
6. Dai giusnaturalismi allo storicismo dialettico: la modernità figlia di Hegel e Marx
7. Considerazioni conclusive

Статья посвящена раскрытию понимания права и юриспруденции в учениях двух значимых представителей британского юридического позитивизма II половины XIX столетия - Уильяма Маркби и Шелдона Амоса. В работе изучаются ключевые понятия классического юридического позитивизма («политическое общество», «право», «позитивный закон», «суверенитет»), производится их анализ и сопоставление с командной концепцией права Д. Остина, общими идейными установками традиции английского юридического позитивизма. В статье демонстрируется, что учения британских правоведов направлены на раскрытие специально-юридической перспективы в понимании общеправовых понятий и области юриспруденции.

The Lutheran reformation transformed not only theology and the church but law and the state as well.  Beginning in the 1520s, Luther joined up with various jurists and political leaders to craft ambitious legal reforms of church, state, and society on the strength of Luther’s new theology.  These legal reforms were defined and defended in hundreds of monographs, pamphlets, and sermons published by Lutheran writers from the 1520s to 1550s.  They were refined and routinized in hundreds of new reformation ordinances promulgated by German cities, duchies, and territories that converted to the Lutheran cause.  By the time of the Peace of Augsburg (1555) -- the imperial law that temporarily settled the constitutional order of Germany--the Lutheran Reformation had brought fundamental changes to theology and law, to church and state, marriage and family, education and charity.
Critics of the day, and a steady stream of theologians and historians ever since, have seen this legal phase of the Reformation as a corruption of Luther’s original message of Christian freedom from the strictures of human laws and traditions.  But Luther ultimately realized that he needed the law to stabilize and enforce the new Protestant teachings. Radical theological reforms had made possible fundamental legal reforms.  Fundamental legal reforms, in turn, would make palpable radical theological reforms.  In the course of the 1530s onwards, the Lutheran Reformation became in its essence both a theological and a legal reform movement.  It struck new balances between law and Gospel, rule and equity, order and faith, structure and spirit.

Предметом исследования является правовое учение ведущего
представителя английского юридического позитивизма последней четверти XIX – первой трети XX века Томаса Эрскина Холланда. Статья посвящена изучению двух ключевых аспектов его концепции – пониманию природы юриспруденции как науки и права как
вида социальной нормы. В работе на основе классического труда британского юриста «Основы юриспруденции» (1880 г.) последовательно определяется понимание юриспруденции и понятие права, раскрывается историко-культурное значение
правового учения Холланда для последующего развития английской юриспруденции.
Научная новизна исследования видится в том, что впервые в отечественном правоведении произведен предметный анализ ключевых теоретико-правовых понятий учения Холланда – понятий юриспруденции и права, раскрыта идейная взаимосвязь между воззрениями британского юриста и основоположниками аналитической юриспруденции. Помимо этого, автором обосновывается позиция, согласно которой
подход Холланда к пониманию природы юриспруденции как науки можно определить как догматический. Вклад Холланда в развитие юридического позитивизма видится в том, что он обосновал формальный и аналитический характер юридической науки, провел последовательную дифференциацию позитивного права от естественных и социальных норм, представил анализ важнейших теоретических понятий юридической науки.

Toplumun temel taşı hüviyetindeki aile, her hukuk sisteminde olduğu gibi
İslâm hukukunda da önemli bir yere sahiptir. Ülkemizde Medeni Hukuk’un kabulüyle birlikte evlilik akdinin kuruluşuyla ilgili özel şekil şartları belirlenmiştir. Bu durum toplum içerisinde farklı nikah şekilleri doğurmuştur.
Dolayısıyla Mer’i Hukuk ile İslam Hukuku arasındaki farklılıkları
değerlendirmek ve kişileri imam nikahına yönelten etmenlerin analiz edilmesi önem arz etmektedir.
Bu makalede evlilik akdinin şartları açısından İslâm Hukuku ve Mer’i Hukuk arasındaki en önemli ayrım noktalarını ve insanları imam nikahına yönelten psikolojik etmenlerin analizini yapmaya çalıştık. Şahitlik, veli izni ve mehir gibi konularla birlikte, resmi nikahın İslam hukuku açısından yetersizliği, nikahın hukuki sorumluluklarından kaçınma, nişanlılık dönemini rahat geçirme ve birden fazla evlilik yapma düşüncesi detaylı olarak incelenmiştir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: İslam hukuku, mer’i hukuk, aile, nikah, şahitlik, veli.
Purpose of this study is to analyze structural changes in the civil contract with Positive Law at the point of building a family that is cornerstone of the society and to find out the reasons that lead people to imam marriage.
With the article prepared for this purpose we have found out that the biggest difference between the Islamic Law and the Positive Law are witnessing and parental permission. We have stated that the most important physchological reasons that lead people to imam marriage are accepting the formal marriage inadequate from the point of Islamic Law, keeping off the legal responsibilities of marriage, having a nice engagement period and the idea of getting married more than once.
Keywords: Islamic Law, Positive Law, Family, Marriage, Witnessing, Parent

Indonesia still applies death penalty even so many countries and international society opposed the death penalty. In Indonesia, also recognize Islamic Law. in Islamic Law, there is qisas (revenge equally) for instance, if someone kill others then he should be killed as the punishment.

The aim of this essay is to demonstrate that human life, biologically understood what I call the human bios embodies a moral criterion, a reason for action, having a minimum natural content. This criterion is based on the end-value of survival, that is, the need to live biologically and ensure the continuation of the human species. The argument that I put forward implies a rediscovery of the exceptional legal value of survival: a non-instrumental value, related to the forms of living that human beings decide to put into practice. In agreement with Hart, law is practicable if and only if a minimum content of natural law is respected: law is concerned with social arrangements, not with suicide club; no law is given that is, no legal order, relations or intersubjectivity when the rules are designed to bring about death rather than the assurance of living.

O presente estudo, a partir de uma noção pós-positivista, analisa os princípios jurídicos como elementos e estrutura do sistema jurídico. Para tanto, após a apresentação do tema, o caminho traçado trata: da normatividade dos princípios e da superação da dicotomia jusnaturalismo / juspositivismo; do conceito de princípio e de princípio jurídico; da noção de sistema e o sistema do direito positivo; dos elementos e a estrutura do sistema jurídico; e enfim, da tipologia e articulação dos princípios no interior do sistema do direito positivo. Tal análise propõe-se, ao cabo, a explicar em termos jurídicos as definições metafóricas de princípio amplamente difundidas pela doutrina pátria, bem como a fornecer instrumental teórico suficiente ao entendimento das diversas funções dos princípios no ordenamento jurídico.

The purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate the inconsistencies between ethical theory and legal practice of animal treatment. Specifically, we discuss contemporary legal solutions, based on three case studies – Serbian, German and UK positive law, and point out the inconsistencies in them. Moreover, we show that the main cause of these inconsistencies is anthropocentric view of moral relevance. Finally, when it comes to the different treatment of animals living in the wild and domestic animals, we show that the current theoretical explanations are unsatisfactory.

Penal mediation by using a restorative justice approach has been considered as the best way to speed the dispute settlement process of the traffic accident in Indonesia. This approach is not only quick and simple, but it is also cost efficient. However, discussion on this issue appears to be limited. For that reason, this paper aims at discussing penal mediation in the traffic accidents dispute settlement in Indonesia. This study found that penal mediation of traffic accident dispute in Indonesia is quite different in comparison to the type of mediation in several countries. In Indonesia the mediation process consists of the agreement from parties involved and restitution from the offender to the victim. Such restitution could be in form of apology or in the form of compensation agreed by both parties. Settlement through this mediation can be considered as a negative form of law enforcement. Therefore, mediation through this way should be in accordance of the positive law.

Juridist Reformulation of Halâl Products for Muslim Consumers in Indonesia. This paper examines the certification of halâl products that are becoming a social problem in the community as well as a responsibility of the state on the basis of the same reasoning, the assurance of halâl products. Halâl certification aims to protect the public from unlawful products and risks to health that often occur with differences of interests, especially between producers and consumers. The main source of this article is data obtained from field research that is related to the community to halâl certification LPPOM-MUI in Central and South Sumatra Province. The data is read through constructivism paradigm from a socio-legal approach with a pointed analysis of the codification theory of Islamic law, legal sociology by the American lawyer and scholar Rescoe Pound and mashlahah mursalah theory.DOI: 10.15408/ajis.v14i1.1241

En la reflexión contemporánea sobre la validez de las normas con valor deóntico, se han perfilado tres posiciones distintas: la postura liberal, según la cual las leyes morales estarían intrínsecamente injustificadas, ya que violarían la autonomía o el derecho a la independencia moral de los individuos; la postura colectivista o comunitaria, para la cual las leyes morales se justificarían siempre que resultaran convenientes para reforzar y mantener la cohesión social; y la postura que defiende la llamada "Tradición central de Occidente", para la cual las leyes morales valen y obligan siempre y cuando sus contenidos sean éticamente acertados porque se apoyan en el derecho natural, y su aplicación sea prudencialmente adecuada. El artículo está orientado a presentar esta última postura y a avalar su vigencia y necesidad en la situación actual.

Grupo investigador con quien se realizó el inventario de las normas constitucionales. RESUMEN El presente artículo se ocupa de desentrañar los soportes constitucionales del derecho probatorio y, por ende, de la prueba jurídica en sus diferentes especies. Para el efecto comienza por sentar el principio de que la Constitución política es la fuente de todo nuestro derecho objetivo y positivo. En seguida se precisan las nociones de derecho probatorio, prueba jurídica, prueba jurídica material y sus modalidades ad subtantiam actus y ad probationem, prueba administrativa y prueba judicial. Y con tales conceptos se emprende la búsqueda de las disposiciones constitucionales que aluden a las mismas para conformar el respectivo inventario.

Court decisions involving custom, the rights of women, and positivist law in Papua New Guinea and Canada are explored and contrasted. In Papua New Guinea the courts have struck down aspects of custom or customary law as being repugnant to the general principles of humanity and in violation of positivist law. In Canada men have argued for the application of custom as a mitigating factor in sentencing, asserting that it offers justi cation for conduct against women judged criminal under positivist law. Examining judicial discourse on custom or customary law in the two countries illuminates the tensions between custom and positivist law, revealing how custom comes to be judged "good" or "bad" and is reframed as non-normative in one country but as an appropriate cultural component in sentencing in the other.

This piece is a response to some arguments presented by John Finnis in "Natural Law Theory: its Past and its Present" (American Journal of Jurisprudence 57 (1): 8 1-101 (2012)). First, I question Finnis’s interpretation of an example of Thomas Aquinas’s regarding the derivation of positive from natural law by way of conclusion. Second, I question Finnis’s terminology insofar as he calls ‘natural law’ something that in reality is part of positive law i.e., the so-called conclusiones. Third, I question Finnis’s apparent rejection of the coexisting of normative orders (natural and positive). Overall my three challenges are on minor points and of a friendly nature in that their starting point is sympathetic with Finnis’s natural law project. His rejoinder can be found in “Coexisting Normative Orders? Yes, but No” (American Journal of Jurisprudence 57 (1):111-117 (2012)).

Рассматривается проблема неизбежного столкновения официального позитивного права с так называемыми "теневыми" социальными регуляторами в условиях усугубляющегося кризиса общества. Проанализированы причины снижения авторитета официального права, инфляции правовых норм и роста аномии.

Violence provides us with insight as to how we can interpret the relationship between law and violence through the ideas of positive and natural law. He also illustrates the dual function of violence: lawmaking and law preserving. Discipline and Punish, by Foucault, gives us a framework in which we can view violence in the modern form, through discipline. Using surveillance as the means of control, he shows us how discipline rose as a new form of domination, resulting from increased human knowledge about our body and soul. Lastly, Robert Cover"s Violence and the Word takes the common practice of judicial interpretation and shows us the inherent violence that is present in the everyday functioning of our judicial system.

The Lutheran Reformation transformed not only theology and the church but law and the state as well. Beginning in the 1520s, Martin Luther joined up with various jurists and political leaders to craft ambitious legal reforms of church, state, and society on the strength of Luther’s new theology, particularly his new two kingdoms doctrine. These legal reforms were defined and defended in hundreds of monographs, pamphlets, and sermons published by Lutheran writers from the 1520s to 1550s. They were refined and routinized in hundreds of new reformation ordinances promulgated by German cities, duchies, and territories that converted to the Lutheran cause. By the time of the Peace of Augsburg (1555)—the imperial law that temporarily settled the constitutional order of Germany—the Lutheran Reformation had brought fundamental changes to theology and law, to church and state, marriage and family, criminal law and procedure, and education and charity. Critics of the day, and a steady stream ...

This article draws two main conclusions. First, meeting both the permanent and evolutionary needs of Muslim communities, Islamic law is a normative composite of baqā (eternal) and fanā (transient) sources of law. Islamic law founded on the Quran and the Prophet’s Sunnah (Basic Code) offers normative permanence to the extent that fundamental values of the Basic Code cannot be amended or repealed. However, Islamic positive law, comprised of fiqh, legislation, case law, local customs, and international law, evolves under the submission principle, a principle that requires positive law to submit to the Basic Code. Accordingly, no rule of positive law can breach the Basic Code. No rule of positive law is Islamic unless it submits to the supremacy of the Basic Code. This study rejects text-skepticism under which the interpretation of a legal text can achieve the same purpose as textual amendment. Second, Islamic baqā and fanā temporalities, interweaving the worldly life with afterlife, of...

Rather than seeing law as a vague "norm" or overly precise and possibly untenable "rights" this article argues for a simpler functionalist definition of law as a set of conditionals associated with imperatives. As such it hopes to bypass two fruitless parallel debates which however do not address each other: 1) the nature of "norms" 2) the nature of "rights". I. WHAT IS LAW? One of the fundamental questions of legal theory is what is meant by the term "law". 1 This essay proposes an 1 Definitions of law abound: E.g., the "bad man theory" ("The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law." Holmes, (1897) Path of the Law in David Kennedy & Fisher (2007) at 31.) but also Cicero (arguing law is inherently moral: "Est quidem vera lex, recta ratio, naturae congruens, diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna, quae vocet ad officium jubendo, vetando a fraude deterreat, quae tamen neque probos frustra jubet aut vetat, nec improbos jubendo aut vetando movet."True law is right reason in accord with nature. Cicero, (51 b.c.) De Republica) and of course Kelsen who argues that the law is a "norm"

No presente texto pretende-se discutir sobre a discricionariedade algorítmica - discricionariedade, claro, decorrente de correntes positivista - e o denominado teste de Turing jurídico como critério de indicação de legitimidade de uma decisão judicial elaborada a partir de algoritmo de Inteligência Artificial

This essay will analyze the impact of slavery and its notorious legacy on ideals of ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’ through the respective works of Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Douglass, and James Baldwin. I will also lend my commentary support and contentions with each of these individuals as it is my position that slavery is an abomination; and more specifically, the United Sates’ history of chattel slavery has created serious concern for the concept of ‘justice.’

The article is devoted to the legal doctrine of the famous New Zealand jurist John William Salmond — one of the most remarkable representatives of Anglo-American legal positivism, who made a significant contribution to its development. The aim is to reconstruct the views of a lawyer about the nature of law and the subject area of jurisprudence. The relevance lies in the fact that the evolution of Anglo-American legal positivism from J. Austin to the teachings of H.L.A. Hart is poorly studied in Russian jurisprudence while prevailing in Anglo-American legal thought. The methodological basis comprises historical approach along with the elements of a biographical approach, techniques and procedures of legal hermeneutics, rules and techniques of formal logic allowing to reconstruct the key ideas of J. Salmond's legal theory and place it in the context of the common law tradition. The main ideological line of the work is the connection between the legal teachings of J. Austin, J. Salmond and H.L.A. Hart. The work reveals features that allow to assert the typological belonging of Salmond's doctrine to the classical legal positivism in England. Particular attention in the article is paid to the study of significant differences between the legal teachings of J. Austin and J. Salmond, as well as the substantial similarities between legal theories of J. Salmond and H.L.A. Hart. The author came to the conclusion that Salmond's legal doctrine was the first in the history of English legal positivism, where the basis for the validity of law lies not in the order of the sovereign, but within the practice of the courts recognizing the rules as legal.

Résumé/Abstract L'A. tente une typologie des décisions dans lesquelles, en Egypte et dans le monde arabe, il est fait recours au répertoire juridique islamique. Sur la base d'extraits de jurisprudence, sont distingués les processus, d'une part, de substantialisation et d' ...

This work continues the research started in "Positività e Giurisprudenza. Teoria e prassi della formazione giudiziale del diritto" (see other uploads), looking at the various ways in which law gains its status of "positive" in the contemporary globalized world. It brings some more evidence for criticising the traditional mono-typical view of "law positivization", arguing for a "pluri-typical" approach: law acquires its positive status through very different ways, each of them asking for specific critical evaluation. (this file is delivered to the community for research purposes only)

The present article commences analyzing the origins and influences of the religious discourse on the configuration of the modern constitutional discourse and the contributions of the jus-positivism in the consolidation of this sacred-civil language. The second issue is the definition of the U.S. Constitution as a mixed and not as a democratic constitution, with regard to the influences of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Polybius to the Drafters of the first modern constitutional text; stability and equilibrium took preference over democracy in a wide sense. I also analyze how the Drafter's decision has conditioned the modern constitutional system up to the present. Keywords Modern and ancient constitutionalism. The role of God. Torah. U.S. American constitution drafters. Civic religion. Legal postivism. Mixed constitution instead democracy Modern or Ancient Constitutionalism? The first issue that is going to be analyzed in the present article is the sacred conception of the U.S. Constitution and the expansion of this phenomenon to the rest of the modern constitutions of the world. I will start considering the features of the religious discourse adopted by the founding fathers into the American political thought and how this discourse has been applied to the U.S. Constitution. In this sense, I try to highlight the connection between the Hebrew character of a

En este artículo, el autor realiza una despiadada crítica a la tradición política liberal de Occidente poniendo en tela de juicio la validez de sus conquistas jurídicas y sociales. Frente a un estado medieval real, el autor contrapone un estado liberal virtual, donde los logros y reivindicaciones por este último logradas-derechos humanos, constitucionalismo, demo cracia-si bien son imperecederas en la teoría constituyen, sin embargo, falacia absoluta en la realidad. La historia del Estado de derecho es delatada como una "historia de exclusiones" más que de respeto; de represión más que de derecho; de despojo más que de libertad; de autoritarismo más que de civilidad. De esta manera, el autor va desenmascarando el "mito maniqueo" de la modernidad ilustrada: el tradicional antagonismo entre nobleza y burguesía no es real, sino ficticio. El fstado de derecho no es otra cosa que el "aburguesamiento de la nobleza y el ennoblecimiento de la burguesía". De ello se concluye que la historia de este Estado no ha sido otra cosa que un proceso histórico mitificado, alevoso y calculador; más que una entelequia, el Estado de derecho es una burla sostenida pues en vez de derecho se yergue la propiedad como la auténtica hacedora de los patrones de justicia, ciudadanía y "moralidad universal".