Quid jus or quid juris?
Immanuel Kant warned against confusing the question of what law is (quid jus) and what the law is in a given jurisdiction (quid juris). This paper tries to revive this long-forgotten admonition. Some jurisprudes seem to presuppose that lawyers and officials are in the business of investigating what...
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| Pubblicato in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/revus, |
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| Autore principale: | |
| Natura: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lingua: | Anglais |
| Pubblicazione: |
Revus
2026
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| Soggetti: | |
| Accesso online: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Riassunto: | Immanuel Kant warned against confusing the question of what law is (quid jus) and what the law is in a given jurisdiction (quid juris). This paper tries to revive this long-forgotten admonition. Some jurisprudes seem to presuppose that lawyers and officials are in the business of investigating what law is, which leads to regrettable confusions. Moreover, the philosophical concept of law (quid jus) has no relevance for law-ascertainment practices (quid juris), even though quid juris ascertainments are part of the practice legal philosophers philosophize about. Legal disagreements are of various kinds, but none of their solutions involve any kind of recourse to philosophical claims about the nature of law. This, in turns, raises the question: if legal philosophy (insofar as it purports to be about the nature or the concept of law) is irrelevant to law-ascertainment practices, what is it good for? |
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