[SydPhil] Wibren van der Burg

[Martin Krygier]

The UNSW Network for Interdisciplinary Studies of Law
invites you to attend
an evening seminar:

Wibren van der Burg

ON

A Pluralist Account of Legal Interactionism


TUESDAY, 19 AUGUST 2014
Dean's Board Room
2nd Floor
UNSW LAW SCHOOL

DRINKS: 5.30 - 6.00 pm
SEMINAR AND DISCUSSION: 6.00 - 8.00 pm
Would those interested in attending the seminar please let Martin Krygier (m.krygier at unsw.edu.au<mailto:m.krygier at unsw.edu.au>) know ahead of time.

ABSTRACT:
A Pluralist Account of Legal Interactionism
Wibren van der Burg[1]

Theories of law in the beginning of the twenty-first century must be able to address at least four phenomena: global legal pluralism, the regulatory explosion, the emergence of interactional law, and the dynamics of law and society. My claim is that legal interactionism provides the best answer to those challenges. Legal interactionism (inspired by the work of Lon Fuller and Philip Selznick) takes interactional (or implicit) law seriously, however, without reducing all of law to interactional law. It is thus consistently pluralist in its approach. As pluralism and dynamics are pervasive in modern law, legal interactionism is a more adequate theory to describe modern law than the traditional competitors of legal positivism and natural law. This theory also helps to understand apparent anomalies of modern law, such as international law, the law of the European Convention on Human Rights, and horizontal, interactive legislation.
In legal interactionism, law and morality are not separate entities, nor is law the dominant partner authoritatively deciding which parts of morality to incorporate. Law cannot be separated from morality and in this sense there is a necessary intertwinement between law and morality; yet the degree of intertwinement and the form it takes is variable and thus contingent. Legal interactionism thus offers a perspective to do justice to the core of truth in both legal positivism and natural law. Moreover, it is an adequate theory of law for interdisciplinary socio-legal research. On the one hand, it goes beyond law in the books by accepting interactional law; on the other hand, it does take legal doctrine seriously.

My presentation will be based on my book The Dynamics of Law and Morality. A Pluralist Account of Legal Interactionism, Farnham: Ashgate 2014. http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472430403<https://outlookweb.eur.nl/owa/redir.aspx?C=ak8tboviRUGehzghSekNc18IO19KTNEIZlqvlSS6NIuwK6LpxoQYPX7aArNyfDcrVHgG8tkLEe8.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.ashgate.com%2fisbn%2f9781472430403>
Some central ideas of the book and the presentation may be found in the attached paper

Wibren van der Burg studied law and moral philosophy at Utrecht University. He is professor of Legal Philosophy and Jurisprudence at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Before he moved to Rotterdam in 2008, he was professor of Jurisprudence at Tilburg University. From 1986 until 1994, he worked in Utrecht at the Centre for Bioethics and Health Law and at the Department of Philosophy.
The central theme of his research and teaching is the interaction between law, ethics and society. A special focus in his research is how law and politics should deal with the dynamics of cultural and religious pluralism. A second focus is on the methods of legal research as a hermeneutic, argumentative, and empirical interdiscipline.
He recently finished a book The Dynamics of Law and Morality. A Pluralist Account of Legal Interactionism (Ashgate 2014). He has written 7 books in Dutch and co-edited 6 books, including The Importance of Ideals (with Sanne Taekema), Rediscovering Fuller (with Willem Witteveen) and Reflective Equilibrium (with Theo van Willigenburg). Some recent articles: 'What Is Neutrality?', Ratio Juris (forthcoming, with Roland Pierik), and 'Essentially Ambiguous Concepts and the Fuller-Hart-Dworkin Debate,' Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, 95 (2009) 3, 305-326.
Website: www.wibrenvanderburg.eu









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[1]  Professor of Legal Philosophy and Jurisprudence, Erasmus School of Law, EUR, Rotterdam; Visiting Professor Queen Mary University London. www.wibrenvanderburg.eu
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