Analysis of Coherentism and Fundamentalism in Legal Theories: Case Study of "Theory of Criminalization"

Abstract

An important issue that has been neglected in research on the analysis of legal theoretical foundations is the epistemological analysis and description of the theoretical structure of this science. Some jurists believe that legal knowledge is an independent knowledge that defines its concepts and principles; Others, on the other hand, believe that concerning defining and explaining basic concepts and principles, law and its branches, despite their methodological independence, are inevitably bound to follow the definitions provided by other sciences. Using the definition of “knowledge structure” provided by justification theories, the first group can be described as “cohesive” and the second group can be analysed according to “fundamentalist” criteria. In this article, an attempt is made to first analyse and evaluate the effects of coherence and fundamentalist approaches in legal theories, and then to examine the impact of each of these two approaches in the analysis of criminological theory. Since criminological theories are committed to upholding the fundamental values of society and regulating the coercive relationship between the state and man through the use of “power” and coercive power, the analysis of its epistemological structure has significant effects and dimensions. Consequently, if the structure of criminology is analysed with a coherent approach, problems such as “lack of input”, “infinite sequence” and the challenges of justifying extrajudicial statements will arise. In contrast, fundamentalist analysis of criminality makes it possible to speak of “political limitations of criminal law” instead of “moral constraints of criminal law”.

Keywords

• philosophy of law
• criminology
• theories of justification
• coherentism
• fundamentalism