The problem of the existence of the norm

Kazimierz Opałek

pp. 217-231

in: Kazimierz Opałek, Selected papers in legal philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 1999

Abstract

The questions of the ontology of norms are being discussed lately as one of the topics of theory (or philosophy) of norms, sometimes in connection with the philosophical foundations of deontic logic¹. The approach to the norm is different in this instance from the most frequent one in legal theory, and metaethics. The point at issue is not to investigate the logical-semantic properties of the norm (normally treated in the last-mentioned-disciplines as some linguistic expression) but to investigate the nature of the norm as some object, thing. The question is — generally speaking — not that of examining the relation of the norm (as linguistic expression) to reality, but that of considering the norm as an element of reality². This approach is also an unfamiliar one to the scholars undertaking, mostly for practical purposes (e.g., in legal dogmatics, or in normative ethics) the logical-linguistic analyses of the texts of some sort (as for instance in the interpretation of law). On the other hand, such lines of investigation are to be found in social sciences where the norms are being considered as facts belonging to the sphere of the motivational processes of the individuals and (or) of human behaviour in society³. To the ontology of norms attention is also being paid by some idealistic trends in philosophy (e.g., phenomenological philosophy)⁴.