Alf Ross

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Alf Niels Christian Ross (born June 10, 1899 in Copenhagen ; † August 17, 1979 ) was a Danish legal philosopher and lawyer . Primarily he became known as a representative of Scandinavian legal realism and, along with Axel Hägerström and Karl Olivecrona, is considered the most important representative of this legal theoretical direction.

Life

Alf Ross graduated from high school in 1917. He began studying at the Technical University of Denmark , which he broke off after just one semester to study law at the University of Copenhagen ; a degree that he completed in 1922. He then worked for a lawyer and in 1923 began a study trip that lasted two and a half years and took him to France , England and Austria . He was accompanied by his wife Else-Merete Helweg-Larsen, whom he had met at the university. In Vienna he met Hans Kelsen , who made a deep impression on him. Back in Copenhagen he began a law doctoral thesis, which he soon gave up in favor of a philosophical doctoral thesis. The 1928 and 1929 he spent in Uppsala , where he in 1929 by Axel Hägerström Dr. phil. received his doctorate. In 1934 he received his doctorate in law in Copenhagen, and in 1935 he got a job at the University of Copenhagen, where he taught constitutional law. In 1953 his book Om Ret og Retfærdighed was published, which he published in English in 1959 under the title On Law and Justice . From 1959 to 1972 he was a representative of Denmark at the European Court of Human Rights . In 1969 Ross left the University of Copenhagen. His wife Else-Merete Ross was politically active for the party Det radical Venstre and from 1960 to 1973 a member of the Folketing .

plant

Ross' early work on the theory of legal sources from 1929 is considered "historically influential".

Alf Ross, in his book On Law and Justice from 1959, took the view that, for epistemological reasons, there was no possibility of granting the law special substantive standards a priori . Experience is the benchmark here. That means z. B. that the well-known expression 'suum cuique tribuere', 'to give each his own', has no meaning until it becomes clear what actually belongs to each; but that points to a circular argument ( On Law and Justice , § 64 (p. 276)). His determination not to trust anything but the facts leads him to say that the law is neither true nor false and should rather be viewed as a guideline ( On Law and Justice , § 2 (p. 2)). The norm is not aimed at the citizens, but at the judge ( On Law and Justice , § 7 (p. 33)).

He opposed the concept of a natural law . In his opinion, it is not clear what is meant by this; Moreover, one always invokes only one personal insight, whereby there is no way of specifying which of the many possible insights should be the correct one. In this way one is at the mercy of unlimited invention and dogmatics ( On Law and Justice , § 58 (p. 261)).

Fonts (selection)

  • Legal Sources Theory. A contribution to the theory of positive law based on dogma-historical studies , Leipzig and Vienna 1929
  • Critique of so-called practical knowledge, at the same time prolegomena to a critique of jurisprudence, Copenhagen and Leipzig 1933 ( digitized at archive.org ).
  • Imperatives and Logic . In: Philosophy of Science . tape 11 , no. 1 , 1944, ISSN  0031-8248 , pp. 30-46 , JSTOR : 184888 (English).
  • Tû-Tû . In: Harvard Law Review . tape 70 , no. 5 , 1957, ISSN  0017-811X , p. 812-825 , doi : 10.2307 / 1337744 , JSTOR : 1337744 (English, first in: O. Borum, K. Ilium (ed.): Festskrift til henry Ussing , Kobenhavn Juristforbundet , 1951).
  • On Law and Justice , Berkeley / Los Angeles 1959
  • Directives and Norms , London 1968
  • On Guilt, Responsibility and Punishment , London 1975

literature

  • Jes Bjarup: Scandinavian Realism: Hägerström, Lundstedt, Olivecrona, Ross , College of Legal Theory, Volume 3.1. Alber, Freiburg 1978.
  • Jes Bjarup: Alf Ross . In: Robert Walter / Alfred Schramm: The circle around Hans Kelsen. The early years of pure legal theory , Vienna: Manz 2008 (series of the Hans-Kelsen-Institut; 30), ISBN 978-3-214-07676-4 , pp. 409–443.
  • Jens Evald: Alf Ross: a life . Djøf Forlag, Copenhagen 2014, ISBN 978-87-574-9741-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Alf Ross. Retrieved June 29, 2020 .
  2. ^ Niklas Luhmann : The right of society . In: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft . 1st edition. No. 1183 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-518-58168-6 , pp. 306 , footnote 19 .