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Naturrechtslehre as „ideology”: Hans Kelsen’s understanding of Thomas Hobbes’ science on civil laws.
Abstract
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The article is an attempt to provide reconstruction of Kelsen’s reading of Hobbes’ theory of natural law in the context of Kelsenian critique of Naturrechtslehre.
THE RESEARCH PROBLEMS AND METHODS: The article focuses on an analysis of the pararells and similarities in the recognition of the relationship between natural and positive law between Kelsen’s critical positivism and Hobbes’ theory of natural law. The method applied is textual interpretation as consisted with Skinner’s historical contextualism. We do not trace “unit ideas” or “perennial problems” rather than individual answers to individual questions which nevertheless help to reveal similarities in using the concepts and modes of argument important in the context of contemporary disputes.
THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The article presents the basic outline of Kelsen’s pure theory of law, contemporary “therapeutic” and “secularistic” lectures of Hobbes’ political theory, Kelsenian critique of Hobbes’ “ideology of natural law” and examines the similarities between Kelsen’s and Hobbes’ line of arguments.
RESEARCH RESULTS: The article concludes that Kelsen’s reading of Hobbes’ theory of natural law shows how the idea of justice “becomes a logical pattern”. Nevertheless, the tensions present in Kelsen’s and Hobbes’ theories of legal interpretation reveal the dubiousness of long-lasting attempts to construct political and legal theory unburdened by “religious and metaphysical mortgages”.
CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The intention of the article is to show that analysis of Kelsen’s and Hobbes’ critical contribution to natural law theory may broaden our understanding of the modern problem of judicial activism and relationship between law and politics.
Keywords
Naturrechtslehre, “ideology of natural law”, legal interpretation, Hans Kelsen, Thomas Hobbes
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