The Challenges Posed by the Community of Law-Givers and Law-Followers in Edith Stein’s Idea of the State

Abstract

Edith Stein’s investigation of the state raises many interesting and challenging questions, not only on account of its form but also in terms of its content. One of the central claims that Stein makes about the state concerns its autonomy: the state is defined by its sovereignty to self-legislate, but this power to self-legislate is framed within a community of law-givers and law-followers, and not in a society. The law (Recht) community consists of a “solidarity” between members of “one living in the experience of the other” (ineinandergreifen): members of the community live together the sense (Sinn) of drafting, discussing, implementing, executing, following, and even reforming the law that defines the status and essence of the state. I argue that the intimacy and intensity that typify Steinian community pose a challenge for her understanding of the state: Can the law practically function within the framework of such an intimate and intense form of sociality, which Stein calls community? Perhaps society (Gesellschaft), rather than community, would be a better fit for the sociality required for the law? Perhaps the law needs both community and society for it to work most effectively within the context of the state?