Thomas Mautner

Statements to the effect that a certain law exists are generally considered to be statements of certain contingent, empirical facts. We will discuss a particular view of this kind-namely, legal positivism'-as presented by G.H. von Wright in Norm and Action.2 Statements to the effect that a certain law exists are also generally considered to obey the laws of deontic logic. This is also von Wright's view. The combination of these two views creates problems. These become particularly conspicuous with regard to a possible defect in laws-namely, inconsistency.3 They will be discussed in Sections 2-2i of this essay. With regard to certain logical or moral defects in laws, philosophers tend to claim, as truths a priori, that laws cannot have them. With regard to some other defects (for example, excessive complexity) no similar tendency is evident. A discussion of this difference is contained in Sections 22-25 of this essay.

Central parts of the natural law theories of Grotius and Pufendorf assume that persons by nature have individual realms of their own, violations of which constitute a wrong. This is the basis for their accounts of promises, ownership and reactions against wrongs. These accounts are significantly independent of any assumption that a superior being imposes obligations: rather, the individuals themselves create obligations by their own acts of will. The translator's introducton draws attention to the author's relation to Hägerström, and remarks briefly on related points in Ames, Köhler and Georges Davy