Axiology of Law – from General to Specific Philosophy of Law

Abstract

An axiology as a theory of values takes an important place not only in general philosophy but in legal philosophy as well. Jurisprudence and law cannot ultimately be axiologically neutralised since the relationship between law and values is of a primary, eternal, necessary and immanent character. The author discusses this phenomenon on the example of Gustav Radbruch’s legal philosophy. In his opinion when one writes about Radbruch as a philosopher of law, one should make five very important reservations: firstly, Radbruch was a representative of Neo-Kantianism; secondly, it was not Neo-Kantianism ‘in general’, but a specific variant called Baden Neo-Kantianism (south-German, Heidelberg-based); thirdly, Radbruch was not a philosopher ‘in general’, as he was interested in Neo-Kantianism transplanted to the philosophy of law; fourthly, we may currently notice a great comeback of the philosophy of Kant (e.g. J. Habermas, J. Rawls, O. Höffe), but this phenomenon should be precisely distinguished from Neo-Kantianism as the temporally and spatially determined philosophical direction of the fin de siècle period; fifthly, if one can even speak of some kind of axiological turning point in the evolution of Radbruch’s philosophical views, it is 1933 rather than 1945.

Keywords

• axiology
• philosophy of law
• legal values
• gustav radbruch
• neo-kantianism