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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 March 2019
Where do American and German critiques of their respective “mainstream” legal traditions converge, and where do they diverge? When can the convergences be interpreted as common learning experiences with modern law, as insights into the futility of critical efforts, as indications for their correction? Which divergences are due to differences between the legal cultures and philosophical traditions? Where are they reactions to more specific socio-political constellations and particular structurings of the respective academic systems? From which projects can the “other side” gain new insights, or perhaps entirely new perspectives? Such questions inevitably arise from a volume devoted to German and American critical and socio-theoretical contributions to the discussion of legal theoretical fundamentals. Yet they demand too much from an individual author (at least this one), and their enumeration is intended to make clear the sort of difficulties they occasion and suggest how they might be fruitfully dealt with.
1 Frankenberg, Gunter, supra in this volume.Google Scholar
2 Even beyond the participants of the Bremen Symposium; see Joachim Perels, Die Rechtstheorie auf dem Weg zur neuen BELIEBIGKEIT?, 307 (1987).Google Scholar
3 It is no accident that in the course of the German protest movement of the Sixties, jurists spread out in all directions at once to ransack Marxism, Critical Theory, Systems Theory, Critical Rationalism, and Analytical Philosophy, nor that the contributions of the CLS-movement bristle with a complete arsenal of “famous dead Europeans (and some living ones)”: James Boyle, Critical Legal Studies: A Young Person's Guide, 19 (1985) (Typescript); or that one does not shy from simultaneously claiming inspiration from several intellectually disparate currents for the same contribution (see, infra, A II 2 at note 45). Secondary analyses which examine the references of individual authors to specific theoretical projects and philosophies typically come to the conclusion that the practice of legal-critical analysis does not stick closely to the views found in their theoretical sources; see Brosnan, Donald F., Serious But Not Critical, 60 Southern California Law Review (So. Cal. L. Rev.) 259 (1987); Stick, John, Can Nihilism Be Pragmatic?, 100 Harvard Law Review (Harv. L. Rev.) 313 (1986).Google Scholar
4 See Schlegel, Johann Elias, supra in this volume as well as on Free Law infra 3, note 23.Google Scholar
5 Ulrich K. Preuss, Legalität und Pluralismus. Beiträge zum Verfassungsrecht der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1973).Google Scholar
6 Id., 42.Google Scholar
7 This starting point then determines not only the confrontation with the constitutional theory of the Weimar Republic (Id., 65, 84), but also the understanding of the West German Basic Law (id., 91, 102). The later development and revision of the approach is evident from Ulrich K. Preuss, supra in this volume. See also Karl-Heinz Ladeur, supra in this volume (at note 29).Google Scholar
8 Probleme einer Theorie des Wirtschaftsrechts, in Wirtschaftsrecht als Kritik des Privatrechts. Beiträge zur Privat-und Wirtschaftsrechtstheorie, 9 (Heinz-Dieter Assmann & Gert Brüggemeier & Dieter Hart & Christian Joerges, 1980).Google Scholar
9 Id., 32.Google Scholar
10 Negt, Oskor, 10 Thesen zur marxistischen Rechtstheorie, in: Probleme der marxistischen Rechtstheorie, 10, 35 (Rottleuthner, Hubert ed., 1975).Google Scholar
11 The difficulties of the Marxist legal theory only vaguely referred to here have been pursued with patience and thoroughness by Rottleuthner, Marxistische und analytische Rechtstheorie, supra, note 10, 159.Google Scholar
12 See Brüggemeier, Gert, Vorstudien zu einer Wettbewerbsrechtstheorie. Untersuchungen zu den theoretischen Grundlagen eines sozialen Ordnungskonzepts, Diss. jur. (1974).Google Scholar
13 See Wiethölter, Rudolph, Materialisierungen und Prozeduralisierungen von Recht, in: Workshop zu Konzepten des postinterventionistischen Rechts, (ZERP Materialien, Heft 4), 25, 26 (Brüggemeier, Gert & Joerges, Christian eds., 1984). [English version: Materialisation and Proceduralisation in Modern Law, in Dilemmas of Law in the Welfare State, 221, 222 (Teubner, Gunther ed., 1985)].Google Scholar
14 Der Begriff der politischen Beteiligung (1958), reprinted in: Kultur und Kritik. Verstreute Aufsätze, 9, (Jürgen Habermas 1973); Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, Neuwied-Berlin (1962); Theorie und Praxis. Sozialphilosophische Studien (1963) - Again, one must not understand the influence in the sense of a hierarchy between philosophy as superior science and the individual disciplines as applied sciences. The difficulties of a reflexive social theory which wishes to comprehend its own emergence and anticipate its own application has been noted by jurists too (see Rudolph Wiethölter, Rechtswissenschaft in Kritik und als Kritik, (1971) [Studium Generale der J. Gutenberg-Universität, 1973]).Google Scholar
15 Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie, 496, 503 (Winckelmann, Johannes ed., 1972).Google Scholar
16 See Wiethölter, Rudolph, Bürgerliches Recht, in: Handlexikon zur Rechtswissenschaft, 47, 50 (Görlitz, Axel ed. 1972); see Habermas, Jürgen, Wie ist Legitimität durch Legalität möglich, Kritische Justiz (KJ) 1, 7 (1987).Google Scholar
17 Habermas distanced himself early from “immanent critique”, a form so characteristic for the “classical” Critical Theory (see Der Begriff der politschen Beteiligung, supra, note 14, 53); this is treated sytematically by Axel Honneth, Von Adorno zu Habermas. Zum Gestaltwandel kritischer Gesellschaftstheorie, in Sozialforschung als Kritik. Zum sozialwissenschaftlichen Potential der Kritischen Theorie, 87 (Wolfgang Bonß & Honneth, Axel eds., 1982); Seyla Benhabib, Die Moderne und die Aporien der Kritischen Theorie, id., 127, 151.Google Scholar
18 Habermas, Jürgen, Überlegungen zum evolutionären Stellenwert des modernen Rechts, in Zur Rekonstruktion des historischen Materialismus, 260, 265 (Habermas, Jürgen ed., 1976); see Habermas, Jürgen, Wie ist Legitimität durch Legalität möglich?, supra, note 16, 8 - In Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (Vol. 2: Zur Kritik der funktionalistischen Vernunft), 1981, 229, Habermas expanded on these statements: With its implicit moral contents, formal law corresponded to the replacement of religious and metaphysical world images by post-conventional structures of consciousness; this anchoring in the process of rationalization of the lifeworld not only belongs to the developmental conditions but also to the pre-conditions for the preservation of formal-legal attainments.Google Scholar
19 On the dualism of law as “medium” and “institution” see, infra, B I 3 at note 97 and C I 1 at note 146.Google Scholar
20 Habermas, Jürgen, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (Vol. 2), supra, note 18, 527.Google Scholar
21 Habermas, Jürgen, Wie ist Legitimität durch Legalität möglich?, supra, note 16, 10.Google Scholar
22 Habermas, Jürgen, supra, note 19.Google Scholar
23 Gnaeus Flavius (alias Hermann Kantorowicz), Der Kampf um die Rechtswissenschaft, 7 (1906).Google Scholar
24 Regina Ogorek, Richterkönig oder Subsumtionsautomat? Zur Justiztheorie des 19. Jahrhunderts, (1986).Google Scholar
25 Id., 39-169.Google Scholar
26 Ogorek, supra, note 24, 170–279.Google Scholar
27 Ogorek, supra, note 24, 280–367.Google Scholar
28 Ogorek, supra, note 24, 273.Google Scholar
29 See Fraenkel, Ernst, Zur Soziologie der Klassenjustiz, 28 (1927). Google Scholar
30 See, supra, 1 at note 7.Google Scholar
31 Habermas, Jürgen, Überlegungen zum evolutionären Stellenwert des modernen Rechts (note 18), 267 and supra 2, note 17.Google Scholar
32 See the self-critical considerations in Günther Frankenberg & Ulrich Rödel, Von der Volkssouveränität zum Minderheitenschutz. Die Freiheit politischer Kommunikation im Verfassungsstaat (1981) 9 as well as Barbara Freitag, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns und genetische Psychologie. Ein Dialog zwischen Jürgen Habermas und Jean Piaget, 35 Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie (ZfSS) 555 (1983).Google Scholar
33 Unger, Roberto M., Law in Modern Society. Toward a Criticism of Social Theory, 204 (1976).Google Scholar
34 Horwitz, infra, note 44, 203.Google Scholar
35 Kennedy, Duncan, Legal Formality, 2 J. Legal Stud. 351 (1973).Google Scholar
36 Kennedy, Duncan, Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, 89 Harv. L. Rev. 1685 (1976); The Structure of Blackstone's Commentaries, 28 Buffalo Law Review 205 (1979); Toward an Historical Understanding of Legal Consciousness: The Case of Classical Legal Thought in America, 1850-1940, in 3 Research in Law and Sociology 3 (Spitzer, Steven ed., 1980).Google Scholar
37 Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, id., 1687-1690.Google Scholar
38 Legal Formality, supra, note 36, 359; Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1754.Google Scholar
39 Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1745–1748.Google Scholar
40 Legal Formality, supra, note 36, 361–363.Google Scholar
41 See the often-cited analysis of Roberto Unger, Knowledge and Politics, 29-144 (1975).Google Scholar
42 See the references in Robert W. Gordon, New Developments in Legal Theory, in: The Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique, 281, 284-289 (Kairys, David ed., 1982); Boyle, James, The Politics of Reason: Critical Legal Theory and Local Social Thought, 133 University of Pennsylvania Law Review (U. Pa. L. Rev.) 687, 721-735 (1985) as well as the compilation of (at least temporarily) Marxist inspired authors of the CLS-Movement by Alan Hunt, The Theory of Critical Legal Studies, 6 Oxford J. of Legal Studies 1, 10 (1986) note 26.Google Scholar
43 See the references in Kennedy, David, Critical Theory, Structuralism and Contemporary Legal Scholarship, 21 New England Law Review (New England L. Rev.) 209, 244- 248 (1985-86) - Naturally, one can find close similarities transcending individual or selective receptions, if one takes an abstract enough viewpoint. Thus Jeffrey A. Standen (Note, Critical Legal Studies as an Anti-Positivist Phenomenon, 27 Virginia Law Review 983 (1986)) focuses on the anti-positivism, the “anti- constructivism” and the utopian motives of the Frankfurt School, in order to support his thesis that the CLS movement imported German metaphysics (!) into the US (998). On the other hand, the advice of European authors to integrate refinements of the theorem of the “relative autonomy” of the law (See Hunt, id., 37) or to recall the concept of critique of the early Horkheimer (see Roger Cotterrell, Critique and Law: The Problematic Legacy of the Frankfurt School, Tidskrift foer Raettssociologi 3, 1 (1986)) hardly arouse interest.Google Scholar
44 Horwitz, Morton J., The Rise of Legal Formalism, 19 American Journal of Legal History (Am. J. Legal Hist.) 251 (1975); The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 (1977).Google Scholar
45 See the critique in Gordon, Robert W., Critical Legal Histories, 36 Stanford Law Review (Stan. L. Rev.) 57, 79, 9698, 100-102 (1984) as well as the more detailed review of David Sugarman, British Journal of Law and Society 297, 303-308 (1980).Google Scholar
46 See Kennedy, supra, note 35 - The explicit retraction of the positions described here doesn't change this influence, especially when the retraction contains no distancing from the history of its impact (See Peter Gabel & Duncan Kennedy, Roll Over Beethoven, 36 Stan. L. Rev. 1, 15, 17, 24, 43 (1984)) and Kennedy repeated the retracted statements a little later in modified form: Freedom and Constraint in Adjudication: A Critical Phenomenology, 36 Legal, J. Ed. 518, 551 (1986).Google Scholar
47 Kennedy, Duncan, Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1712; see The Structure of Blackstone's Commentaries, supra, note 36, 210.Google Scholar
48 One frequently encounters this reproach: Peter Goodrich, Law and Modernity, 49 The Modern Law Review (The Modern L. Rev.) 545, 548 (1986) (“superficial ecclecticism”); Hunt, supra, note 42, 3 (“jumbled, incoherent eclecticism”); Koen Raes, Van juridisch relisme tot kritische rechtstheorie. The Critical Legal Studies Movement in de verenigde staten, 777, 780 (1987) (“ongestoord ecclecticisme”). Nevertheless: the censure of Kennedy is really directed at theoretical traditions, which no analysis of modern law could simply “transpose”, and the confession that the confrontation with those traditions has left its traces behind says little about the qualities of the product that emerges from that confrontation.Google Scholar
49 Kennedy, Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1738.Google Scholar
50 Kennedy, Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1688.Google Scholar
51 Kennedy, Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1728–1737.Google Scholar
52 Kennedy, Legal Formality, supra, note 35.Google Scholar
53 Kennedy, Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1712.Google Scholar
54 Kennedy, Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1717–1722.Google Scholar
55 On the dating of this epoch, see Kennedy, Toward a Historical Understanding of Legal Consciousness, supra, note 36, 23.Google Scholar
56 Early attempts at greater specification read as follows: “Consciousness refers to the total Contents of a Mind, including images of the Self, of emotions, goals and values, and theories about the Self … Legal consciousness refers to the particular form of consciousness that characterizes the legal profession as a social group, at a particular moment” (Kennedy, Toward a Historical Understanding of Legal Consciousness, supra, note 36, 23). “… a defining characteristic of Classical legal thought was the assimilation of a great deal of law to a single subsystem dominated by the concept of power absolute within its judicially delineated sphere. A second defining characteristic of Classicism, in contrast to pre-Classical and modern thinking, was the claim that very abstract propositions were nonetheless operative” (Kennedy, Toward a Historical Understanding of Legal Consciousness, supra, note 36, 21).Google Scholar
57 Kennedy, Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1685; see The Structure of Blackstone's Commentaries, supra, note 36, 212 and most recently Freedom and Constraint in Adjudication, supra, note 46, 548–554.Google Scholar
58 Kennedy, The Structure of Blackstone's Commentaries, supra, note 36, 210.Google Scholar
59 Kennedy, Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1717, see 1722.Google Scholar
60 See, infra, B II 2, note 114.Google Scholar
61 Unger's critique of legal formalism proceeds (as does Kennedy's) from the contradiction and thereby resulting infeasibility of liberal theories of justice, the separation of law and law application (Unger, Knowledge and Politics, supra, note 41, 67-100). But Unger's reconstruction of the connections of legal theory, political theory and the “psychology” of liberalism aims at a new social theory which overcomes the antinomies of “theory and fact”, “reason and desire”, and “rules and values” (see also the references infra, C II 1).Google Scholar
62 The prominence of Derrida is a phenomena in itself; see, e.g.: Frug, Gerald E., The Ideology of Bureaucracy in American Law, 97 Harv. L. Rev. 1276, 1286-1292 (1984); Dalton, Clare, An Essay in the Deconstruction of Contract Doctrine, 94 Yale Law Journal (Yale L. J.) 999, 1007-1009 (1985); Peller, Gary, The Metaphysics of American Law, 73 California Law Review (Cal. L. Rev.) 1151 (1985); Leubsdorf, John, Deconstructing the Constitution, 40 Stan. L. Rev. 181 (1987); Balkin, Jack M., Deconstructive Practice and Legal Theory, 96 Yale L. J. 743 (1987); more comprehensively: Heller, Thomas C., Structuralism and Critique, 36 Stan. L. Rev. 127, 155-172, 182-197 (1984); Kennedy, supra, note 43, 271–289.Google Scholar
63 Balkin, Jack M., id., 744-755, 761.Google Scholar
64 E.g. Kennedy, David, The Turn to Interpretation, 58 So. Cal. L. Rev. 251 (1985).Google Scholar
65 E.g. Frug, supra, note 62; Dalton, supra, note 62.Google Scholar
66 Leubsdorf, supra, note 62.Google Scholar
67 Peller, supra, note 62; Balkin, supra, note 62.Google Scholar
68 Peller, supra, note 62, 1153-1158, 1181-1191.Google Scholar
69 Balkin, supra, note 62, 763.Google Scholar
70 Balkin, supra, 785.Google Scholar
71 See Rottleuthner, Hubert, Theories of Legal Evolution: Between Empiricism and Philosophy of History, Rechtstheorie (Beiheft 9), 217 (1986); Hubert Rottleuthner, Aspekte der Rechtsentwicklung in Deutschland, 206 (1985).Google Scholar
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73 See the analysis (widely read in its day) from Wolfgang Müller & Christel Neusüß, Die Sozialstaatsillusion, Sozialistische Politik, 4 (1970), as well as the overview in Heinz-Dieter Assmann, Wirtschaftsrecht in der Mixed Economy. Auf der Suche nach einem Sozialmodell für das Wirtschaftsrecht, 240 (1980).Google Scholar
74 See, e.g., Sinzheimer, Hugo, Formen und Bedeutung der Betriebsräte, (1919); Die Zukunft der Arbeiterräte, (1919), both works reprinted in: Hugo Sinzheimer, Arbeitsrecht und Rechtssoziologie. Gesammelte Aufsätze und Reden, Vol. 1, 321 and 351 (Kahn-Freund, Otto & Ramm, Thielo eds., 1976), as well as the documentation in Gert Brüggemeier, Entwicklung des Rechts im organisierten Kapitalismus. Materialien zum Wirtschaftsrecht, Vol. 1: Von der Gründerzeit bis zur Weimarer Republik, 295-319 (1977) and David Kettler, Legal Reconstitution of the Welfare State: Latent Social Democratic Legacy, 21 Law & Soc. Rev. 9, 29-34 (1987).Google Scholar
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76 Heller, Hermann, Rechtsstaat oder Diktatur?, (1930). From the wealth of secondary literature, see Ingeborg Maus, Hermann Heller und die Staatsrechtslehre der Bundesrepublik, in: Ingeborg Maus, Rechtstheorie und politische Theorie im Industriekapitalismus, 173 (1986).Google Scholar
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78 But by no means exclusively: Thus Udo Reifner, Alternatives Wirtschaftsrecht am Beispiel der Verbraucherverschuldung, (1979), has developed a materialist-social state theory of civil law which in a “social interpretation, is intended to exploit symptomatic breaks of post-formal legal development” and lead to a “market economy compensating” use of law (66, 91); see the detailed examination in Christian Joerges, Verbraucherschutz als Rechtsproblem. Eine Untersuchung zum Stand der Theorie und zu den Entwicklungsperspektiven des Verbraucherrechts, 24-30, 37-40, 46-49, 52-55 (1981).Google Scholar
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86 The momentarily final result are “components” for the model of an “organization constitution” which distingushes itself negatively from the liberal contract constitution but still does not let itself be aggregated into a positive model; see Gert Brüggemeier Wirtschaftsordnung und Staatsverfassung - Mischverfassung des demokratischen Interventionskapitalismus - Verfassungstheorie des Sozialstaates. Drei Modelle der Verflechtung von Staat und Wirtschaft? - Eine Problemskizze, in: Rechtsformen der Verflechtung von Staat und Wirtschaft, 60 (Gessner, Volker & Winter, Gerd eds., 1982).Google Scholar
87 See, supra, A I 1, note 12.Google Scholar
88 See the often-cited study by Franz Wieacker, Das Sozialmodell der klassischen Privatrechtsgesetzbücher und die Entwicklung der modernen Gesellschaft, (1953) (justified inquiry about Wieacker's terminus in Jürgen Schmidt, Vertragsfreiheit und Schuldrechtsreform. Überlegungen zur Rechtfertigung der inhaltlichen Gestaltungsfreiheit bei Schuldverträgen, 17 (1985)).Google Scholar
89 See, supra, A I 3, note 23.Google Scholar
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92 This was demonstrated on many of the central materials of civil law such as contract law, tort law, and the law of unjust enrichment Otherwise reference should be made to economic law monographs which each have their own approaches: Claus Ott, Recht und Realität der Unternehmenskorporation. Ein Beitrag zur Theorie der juristischen Person, (1977); Walz, Wolfgang R., Steuergerechtigkeit und Rechtsanwendung. Grundlinien einer relativ autonomen Steuerrechtsdogmatik, (1980).Google Scholar
93 This is the leitmotif of the critique on the “ordoliberal” theory of the interdependence of (competitive) “economic constitution” and (democratic) “state constitution”; (see Rudolph Wiethölter, Privatrecht als Gesellschaftstheorie?, Festschrift für Ludwig Raiser, 645 (1974); Hart, Dieter, Zur Instrumentierung des Wirtschaftsrechts am Beispiel der Wirtschaftsverfassung, 140 Zeitschrift für das gesamte Handelsrecht und Wirtschaftsrecht (ZHR) 31 (1976); Gotthold, Jürgen, Neuere Entwicklungen der Wettbewerbsrechtstheorie, 145 ZHR 286 (1981). - The term “ordoliberal” is untranslatable, but for its legal conception there are several American equivalents: The ordoliberal theory can be characterized as an attempt to lay claim to the Basic Law for a legal defense of the liberal model against social state transformations, as a “freezing into the legal system (of) the whole structure of laissez-faire” as Kennedy ascertained for the US in the late classical period (Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1733-1756). - In Friedrich August von Hayek, Der Weg zur Knechtschaft (The Road to Serfdom, 1944), Erlenbach-Zürich 1952; Die Verfassung der Freiheit (The Constitution of Liberty, 1960), (1971), American neoliberals and German ordoliberals of the “second generation” have a common theoretical legacy.Google Scholar
94 Wiethölter, Rudolph, Wirtschaftsrecht, in: Görlitz, supra, note 16, 531, 532.Google Scholar
95 Hart, Dieter, Vom bürgerlichen Recht zur politischen Verwaltung, 274 (1974).Google Scholar
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97 See already Jürgen Habermas, Legitimationsprobleme im Spätkapitalismus, supra, note 81, 9, and then in Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, supra, note 18 (Vol. 1 Handlungsrationalität und gesellschaftliche Rationalisierung), 332, Vol. 2, 229 and above all 487.Google Scholar
98 Habermas, Jürgen, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, supra, note 18, Vol. 2, 536.Google Scholar
99 Habermas, Jürgen, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, supra, note 18, 571, 510.Google Scholar
100 Habermas, Jürgen, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, supra, note 18, 514 (emphasis in original).Google Scholar
101 Habermas, Jürgen, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, supra, note 18, 539 (emphasis in original).Google Scholar
102 See Wiethölter, supra, note 13, 30.Google Scholar
103 See, supra, 2 at note 93.Google Scholar
104 See, infra, C I 1.Google Scholar
105 See, supra, A II 1; Unger's liberalism critique belongs to the repertoire of the CLS-movement, but not, characteristically, his later examinations, such as the one drawn on here.Google Scholar
106 Unger, supra, note 33.Google Scholar
107 Unger, supra, note 33, 193.Google Scholar
108 Unger, supra, note 33, 193–200.Google Scholar
109 Unger, supra, note 33, 153.Google Scholar
110 Unger, supra, note 33, 206.Google Scholar
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113 Unger, supra, note 33, 246 (a “program of institutional reconstruction”, Unger, supra, note 112, 601).Google Scholar
114 Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1733–1737.Google Scholar
115 Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1738.Google Scholar
116 The Structure of Blackstone's Commentaries, supra, note 36, 220.Google Scholar
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118 “The opposed rhetorical modes lawyers use, reflect a deeper level of contradiction. At this deeper level, we are divided, among ourselves and also within ourselves, between irreconcilable visions of humanity and society …” (Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication, supra, note 36, 1685). Even after his retraction of the “fundamental contradiction” (note 46), Kennedy repeated this thesis. Freedom and Constraint in Adjudication: A Critical Phenomenology (note 46), describes a judge who wants to bring his “progressive” attitudes into effect, and in so doing immerses himself in the messages of the legal texts, contemplates his entanglements in role constraints and networks of expectation and ultimately, no longer secure in his original intuitions, helplessly falls by the wayside.Google Scholar
119 See, e.g., Charles M. Yablon, The Indeterminacy of the Law: Critical Legal Studies and the Problem of Legal Explanation, 6 Cardozo Law Review 917 (1985); but see Singer, Joseph W., The Player and the Cards: Nihilism and Legal Theory, 94 Yale L. J. 1, 20 (1984).Google Scholar
120 See Solum, Lawrence B., On the Indeterminacy Crisis: Critiquing Critical Dogma, 54 University of Chicago Law Review 462 (1987); Hegland, Kennedy, Goodbye to Deconstruction, 58 So. CAL. L. REV. 1203 (1985).Google Scholar
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124 See the analyses of the “constructive” elements of Legal Realism in Peller, supra, note 62, 2019-2064, as well as Balkin, supra, note 62, 770–772.Google Scholar
125 Frug, supra, note 62, 1276. - Frug's classificaltion of group law doctrines to particular “bureaucracy models” corresponds exactly to the type of German analyses discussed supra in I 2.Google Scholar
126 Even here there are agreements: the affinities between the formalist model of bureaucracy and the market mechanisms for the control of managers discovered by representatives of economic analysis would be expressed by German authors through the qualification of the Chicago School as a specific variant of the “materialization” of formal law.Google Scholar
127 Frug, supra, note 125, 1296, 1386.Google Scholar
128 Frug, supra, note 62, 1382.Google Scholar
129 Frug, supra, note 62, 1360.Google Scholar
130 Dalton, supra, note 62.Google Scholar
131 Brüggemeier, supra, note 12, 1006, 1007.Google Scholar
132 See, supra, I 2.Google Scholar
133 Dalton, supra, note 62, 1012.Google Scholar
134 Dalton, supra, note 62, 1029.Google Scholar
135 See, supra, I 2 and 3.Google Scholar
136 Dalton, supra, note 62, 1014.Google Scholar
137 Dalton, supra, note 62, 1000; on the perspectives of this argumentation see, infra, C II 3.Google Scholar
138 See Heller, Thomas C., A Brief Rejoinder to the Discussion of the CCLS, 1 Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie (ZfRSoz) 126 (1980); Schlegel, John H., Notes Toward an Intimate, Optionated, and Affectionate History of the Conference on Critical Legal Studies, 36 Stan. L. Rev. 391 (1984); Mark Kelman, A Guide to Critical Legal Studies, 1-14 (1987).Google Scholar
139 Windscheid, Bernhard, Die Aufgaben der Rechtswissenschaft (Leipziger Rektoratsrede of 31. October 1884), in Bernhard Windscheid, Gesammelte Reden und Abhandlungen, 100, 112 (Oertmann, Paul ed., 1904).Google Scholar
140 I.e.: the approaches which are discussed in this volume but which in their overall importance remain most likely marginal.Google Scholar
141 GÜNTHER, KLAUS, DER SINN FÜR ANGEMESSENHEIT. ANWENDUNGSDISKURSE IN RECHT UND MORAL (1988).Google Scholar
142 See particularly Habermas, Jürgen, Diskursethik - Notizen zu einem Begründungsprogramm, in JÜRGEN HABERMAS, MORALBEWUßTSEIN UND KOMMUNIKATIVES HANDELN, 53, 127 (1983).Google Scholar
143 HABERMAS, id., 75.Google Scholar
144 Günther, supra, note 141, 117; see on the following already Klaus Günther, Materialisierung als Rekontextualisierung des Formalrechts, Typescript (1984); Preliminary Considerations to a Theory of Procedural Application, in Workshop zu Konzepten des postinterventionistischen Rechts, 74 (Brüggemeier, Gert & Joerges, Christian eds., 1984); Günther, Klaus, The Core of Moral Universalism in Modern Law, Typescript (1984).Google Scholar
145 See on this Kennedy, supra, note 35, whose critique of liberal law application doctrines concentrates on the idea that the substantive content of rules could be brought to effect through their “application” in concrete conflicts.Google Scholar
146 See, supra, B I 3.Google Scholar
147 Günther, supra, note 144, 21.Google Scholar
148 Günther, supra, note 141, 473.Google Scholar
149 See Wiethölter, supra, note 13, 45 (German version), 235 (English version).Google Scholar
150 See Joerges, Christian, Quality Regulation in Consumer Goods Markets: Theoretical Concepts and Practical Examples, in Contract and Organisation. Legal Analysis in the Light of Economic and Social Theory, 142 (Daintith, Terence & Gunther. Teubner eds., 1986) - Anyone who considers such examples will probably estimate the chances of Dworkin's Hercules to bring the principles of relevant law into a coherent connection (Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire, 165, 176, 313 (1986)) more skeptically than Günther does (Günther, supra, note 141, 483). -Dworkin reacts to the radical skepticism of the CLS-movement's indeterminacy thesis (supra B II 2 and 3 as well as C II 2 and 3) with a sort of burden of proof rule: “The internal skeptic must show that the flawed and contradictory account is the only one available” (Dworkin, id., 274). This answer meets the assertion that there are absolutely no successful examples for the legal treatment of colliding interests and principles. On the other hand, recalling that Hercules failed on Earth, one may demand that legal theory must systematically consider the practical-political limits of its normative ideas.Google Scholar
151 See Habermas, Jürgen & Luhmann, Niklas, Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie - Was leistet die Systemforschung? (1971).Google Scholar
152 Just compare the programmatic Mitteilung der Herausgeber: Zum ersten Heft der Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie, ZfRSoz 1 (1980), with issues from the last few years of that journal.Google Scholar
153 See Klaus F. Röhl, Rechtssoziologie, 61, 62 (1987); Lautmann, Rüdiger & Meuser, Michael, Verwendungen der Soziologie in Handlungswissenschaften am Beispiel von Pädagogik und Jurisprudenz, ZfSS 685, 697 (1986).Google Scholar
154 This critique too has an almost twenty year tradition: see Jörg Münstermann, Zur Rechtstheorie Niklas Luhmanns, Kritische Justiz (KJ) 325 (1969), and for a recent example Niklaus Dimmel & Alfred J. Noll, Autopoiesis und Selbstreferentialität als “postmoderne Rechtstheorie” - Die neue reine Rechtsleere, Demokratie und Recht (DuR) 379 (1988).Google Scholar
155 Gunther Teubner protested against taking over this function and at the same time refused to give off the relevant signals; see Gunther Teubner, Social Order from Legislative Noise? Autopoietic Closure as a Problem for Legal Regulation, 5-6 (1985).Google Scholar
156 See Teubner, Gunther, And God Laughed… . Indeterminacy, Self-Reference and Paradox in Law, supra in this volume. From the writings of Niklas Luhmann, see above all: Die Rückgabe des zwölften Kamels. Zum Sinn einer soziologischen Analyse des Rechts, 22, Typescript (1984).Google Scholar
157 Teubner, supra, note 96; Wiethölter, supra, note 13, 91.Google Scholar
158 Episodenverknüpfung: Zur Steigerung von Selbstreferenz im Recht, in Theorie als Passion. Niklas Luhmann zum 60. Geburtstag, 423, 437 (Dirk Baecker et al. eds., 1987).Google Scholar
159 Episodenverknüpfung: Zur Steigerung von Selbstreferenz im Recht, id., 442.Google Scholar
160 See Luhmann, Niklas, Closure and Openness: On Reality in the World of Law, in Autopoietic Law: A New Approach to Law and Society, 335, 337 (Teubner, Gunter ed., 1988).Google Scholar
161 Teubner, Gunther, Introduction to Autopoietic Law, in Autopoietic Law: A New Approach to Law and Society, 1, 2 (Teubner, Gunter ed., 1988); Luhmann would say: the assumptions which go into the reality constructions of the theory of autopoietic systems (id., 343).Google Scholar
162 See Teubner, supra, note 156, 32.Google Scholar
163 Klaus Günther sees corresponding difficulties as they here are asserted for the relation of legal theory and legal doctrine in the relationship between the “code” of the legal system and the environmental adaptations mediated via its “programmings” (Der Sinn für Angemessenheit, supra, note 141, 327).Google Scholar
164 Ladeur, Karl-Heinz, Abwägung - Ein neues Paradigma des Verwaltungsrechts. Von der Einheit der Rechtsordnung zum Rechtspluralismus, 121-184 (1984); see Ladeur, Karl-Heinz, Von der Gesetzesvollziehung zur strategischen Rechtsfortbildung, in Leviathan 332 (1979).Google Scholar
165 Abwägung - Ein neues Paradigma des Verwaltungsrechts. Von der Einheit der Rechtsordnung zum Rechtspluralismus, supra, note 164, 135, 149, 208.Google Scholar
166 Abwägung - Ein neues Paradigma des Verwaltungsrechts. Von der Einheit der Rechtsordnung zum Rechtspluralismus, supra, note 164, 153; on the situation in Germany in the Twenties and the National Socialist reaction see Karl-Heinz Ladeur, Sprachformationen und Rechtsparadigma. Eine modelltheoretische Skizze des deutschen Verwaltungsrechts im 20. Jahrhundert, in Wissenschaft und Recht der Verwaltung seit dem Ancien Regime. Europäische Ansichten (Ius Commune. Sonderheft 21), 189, 200 (Heyen, Erk Volkmar ed., 1984).Google Scholar
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168 E.g.: Jenseits von Regulierung und Ökonomisierung der Umwelt: Bearbeitung von Ungewissheit durch (selbst-)organisierte Lernfähigkeit - Eine Skizze, Zeitschrift für Umweltpolitik (ZfU) 1 (1987); Rundfunkverfassung für die “Informationsgesellschaft”? Selbstorganisation von “taste communities” als Alternative zum Markt und zur öffentlichrechtlichen Integration, in 31 Publizistik 147 (1986).Google Scholar
169 Ladeur, supra, note 164, 200, 221; see Ladeur, Karl-Heinz, Perspektiven einer post-modernen Rechtstheorie. Zur Auseinandersetzung mit Niklas Luhmanns Konzept der “Einheit des Rechtssystems”, in 16 Rechtstheorie 383, 422 (1985) (English version: Perspectives on a Post-Modern Theory of Law: A Critique of Niklas Luhmann, “The Unity of the Legal System”, in Autopoietic Law: A New Approach to Law and Society, 242, 272 (Teubner, Gunter ed., 1988)). Translated into more concrete contexts: Environmental law must orient itself towards the process-like transformations of its area of applicability (the environment subject to various burdens) and to take care of the coordination, subordination, and compatibilization of various actors and interests. Therefore environmental regulations (threshold values) should be determined in open commission procedures, in which all relevant disciplines and also the respective “founded” counter-positions can be articulated. The legal examination should then limit itself to the weighting of the factors, the establishment of a threshold value and the individual procedural steps, while the administration should be conceded a planning discretion (Karl-Heinz Ladeur, Zum planerischen Charakter der technischen Normen im Umweltrecht - Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Wyhl-Urteil des Bundesverwaltungsgerichts - Umwelt- und Planungsrecht (UPR) 253, 258 (1987)).Google Scholar
170 See the argumentation of Albrecht Wellmer, Zur Dialektik von Moderne und Postmoderne. Vernunftkritik nach Adorno, 106-107 (1985).Google Scholar
171 Gunther Teubner reacted to Ladeur's critique of reflexive law with “hearty greetings from chaos” (Anmerkungen zu Ladeurs Konzept des “strategischen Rechts”, in Workshop zu Konzepten des postinterventionistischen Rechts, 340, 346 (Brüggemeier, Gert & Joerges, Christian eds., 1984)).Google Scholar
A more friendly interpretation of the concrete regulation proposals offered by Ladeur can point out that implicitly the flexibilization of law is constantly limited by considerations in which Klaus Günther would recognize suitability argumentations and the attractiveness of the universalibility principle.Google Scholar
172 See, supra, A III and B III.Google Scholar
173 See, on the liberalism critique: supra A II; and his analysis of post-classical legal developments, supra B II 1.Google Scholar
174 See Unger, supra, note 41; Law in Modern Society, supra, note 33; Roberto M. Unger, Passion. An Essay on Personality (1984); the three-volume opus Roberto M. Unger, Politics. a Work in Constructive Social Theory (1987) is still unavailable to me (April 1988). - From the still sparse secondary literature see Drucilla Cornell, Toward a Modern/Postmodern Reconstruction of Ethics, 133 U. Pa. L. Rev. 291, 327-358 (1985); Goodrich, Peter, Law and Modernity, 49 Modern Law Review 545 (1986); Duxbury, Neil T., Look Back in Unger: A Retrospective Appraisal of Law in Modern Society, 49 Modern Law Review 658 (1986); Collins, Hugh, Roberto Unger and the Critical Legal Studies Movement, 14 Journal of Law and Society 387 (1987).Google Scholar
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178 Unger, supra, note 112, 586–602.Google Scholar
179 Unger, supra, note 112, 616–644. - Unger has picked up the habit of dispensing with footnotes. In light of the hypertrophy and the authoritarian gesture of this technique this may be a useful object lesson. But the consequence is that above all the argumentation with judicial developments (which for Unger have a particular significance) remain largely impenetrable even for interested foreign readers.Google Scholar
180 See, supra, A I 2 at note 91, and note 125.Google Scholar
181 See, supra, A I 1 at note 85.Google Scholar
182 See, supra, A II 2 at note 93 and A II 3.Google Scholar
183 See, supra, B II 1 at note 110.Google Scholar
184 Peteghem, Jan van, Critical legal studies: Deconstructie of romantisch kartesianisme?, 16 Rechtsfilosofie en Rechtstheorie 187, 189 (1987).Google Scholar
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190 Kelman, supra, note 185, 321, 345.Google Scholar
191 Kelman, supra, note 185, 326.Google Scholar
192 Kelman, supra, note 185, 299; Kelman, supra, note 138, 5.Google Scholar
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194 See, supra, A II 3 at note 58 and B II 3 at note 123; After the retraction of the “basic contradiction” (supra note 46) of course there still remain of these utopias only the authentic moments of spontaneous expressions of freedom (Gabel/Kennedy, supra, note 46, 43).Google Scholar
195 The Player and the Cards: Nihilism and Legal Theory, 94 Yale L. J. 1 (1984); see the critique of Stick, John, Can Nihilism be Pragmatic?, 100 Harv. L. Rev. 332 (1986).Google Scholar
196 See, supra, C II 3 at note 130.Google Scholar
197 Dalton, supra, note 62, 1010.Google Scholar
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199 Dalton, supra, note 62, 1095.Google Scholar
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