•  16
    This article addresses the use of foreign law in constitutional adjudication. We draw on the ideas of wide reflective equilibrium and public reason in order to defend an engagement model of comparative adjudication. According to this model, the judicial use of foreign law is justified if it proceeds by testing and mutually adjusting the principles and rulings of our constitutional doctrines against reasonable alternatives, as represented by the principles and rulings of other reasonable doctrine…Read more
  • Moral objectivity without robust realism
    In Gonzalo Villa Rosas & Jorge Luis Fabra-Zamora (eds.), Objectivity in jurisprudence, legal interpretation and practical reasoning, Edward Elgar Publishing. 2022.
  •  1
    Jeremy Bentham: luces y sombras
    Anales de la Cátedra Francisco Suárez 47 221-248. 2013.
    Este trabajo presenta las ideas fundamentales de Jeremy Bentham (1848-1832) en teoría jurídica, en ética y en filosofía política. Muestra que su concepción tiene las raíces en una epistemología empirista, una ontología nominalista y una original filosofía del lenguaje. La teoría del derecho contiene una teoría de las normas que incorpora un valioso precedente de la lógica deóntica. El utilitarismo hedonista que coloca como objetivo único la maximización de la felicidad constituye a su vez el fun…Read more
  •  12
    Applicability and Effectiveness of Legal Norms
    with Pablo Navarro
    Law and Philosophy 16 (2): 201-219. 2005.
    We analyse the relationship between applicability and effectiveness of legal norms from a philosophical perspective. In particular, we distinguish between two concepts of applicability. The external applicability of norms refers to institutional duties; a norm N is externally applicable if and only if a judge is legally obliged to apply N to some case c. Internal applicability refers instead to the sphere of validity of legal norms. A norm N is internally applicable to actions regulated by its s…Read more
  •  1
    El derecho: diagramas conceptuales
    Universidad Externado de Colombia. 2017.
    Este libro reúne seis trabajos del autor que procuran suministrar un espacio conceptual para la adecuada comprensión de las prácticas jurídicas en nuestras sociedades. Se trata de elaborar un concepto de derecho, y dar cuenta de sus relaciones con la moralidad, que acoja la posibilidad de que la aplicación judicial del derecho constituya un ámbito en donde la moralidad y de dar cuenta de sus relaciones con la moralidad, que acoja la posibilidad de que la aplicación judicial del derecho constituy…Read more
  •  3
    Rawls, el derecho y el hecho del pluralismo
    Anales de la Cátedra Francisco Suárez 55 49-74. 2021.
    RESUMEN En este trabajo se analizan las principales ideas de John Rawls acerca de la naturaleza del derecho y del razonamiento jurídico. Partiendo de un trabajo de Ronald Dworkin (2004), y básicamente de acuerdo con él, se exponen las críticas dworkinianas a la doctrina rawlsiana de la razón pública, y se presenta un modo en el cual Rawls podría replicarlas. El objetivo del trabajo es mostrar la fecundidad de las ideas rawlsianas para nuestra concepción del derecho en sociedades democráticas, ca…Read more
  •  13
    El Fundamento moral del Derecho
    Anales de la Cátedra Francisco Suárez 56 33-54. 2022.
    En este artículo, se analiza la cuestión de si la existencia del derecho depende necesariamente de la moralidad. La cuestión que ha enfrentado a las doctrinas del derecho natural con el positivismo jurídico. Se trata de mostrar que dicho debate esconde, al menos tres cuestiones diferentes, que requieren respuestas diversas: 1) La cuestión semántica de si las normas positivas injustas son derecho, 2) la cuestión metafísica de si la existencia del contenido del derecho está fundada en hechos moral…Read more
  •  4
    Eugenio Bulygin en España
    Análisis Filosófico 41 (2): 383-386. 2021.
  •  6
    In this book, I present the results of an investigation which began with an extended stay at Oxford's Balliol College during the first half of 1995. My visit to Oxford was made possible by a grant from the Spanish Ministerio de Educaci6n y Ciencia. My sincere thanks go to Joseph Raz who served as my supervisor in Oxford. For several points of the present study, conversations with Timothy Endicott in Oxford were also of great help. The book is part of a larger project of investigation, directed b…Read more
  •  9
    Eugenio Bulygin (1931–2021): The Wonderful Russian
    Ratio Juris 34 (3): 282-285. 2021.
    Ratio Juris, EarlyView.
  •  6
    Eugenio Bulygin (1931–2021): The Wonderful Russian
    Ratio Juris 34 (3): 282-285. 2021.
    Ratio Juris, EarlyView.
  •  7
    Bosquejo de Dworkin: La imbricación entre el derecho Y la moralidad
    Isonomía. Revista de Teoría y Filosofía Del Derecho 41 143-174. 2014.
    Este artículo analiza las principales aportaciones de Ronald Dworkin a la filosofía del derecho y a la filosofía política mostrando que provienen de una visión más amplia que integra el derecho y la moral. La exposición se divide en dos partes. La primera aborda los argumentos de Dworkin para rechazar el positivismo jurídico y presenta su idea de derecho. La segunda se centra en la fundamentación ética del liberalismo y en el criterio distributivo que propone Dworkin.
  •  2
    Verdad y eficacia (Truth and Effectiveness)
    with Pablo E. Navarro
    Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 11 (2): 105-124. 1996.
    Una forma clásica de explicar el significado de una oración es establecer sus condiciones deverdad. Sin embargo, dado que sólo las oraciones declarativas encajan con este tipo de análisis, las oraciones (e.g. imperativas) que carecen de valor de verdad quedan fuera de este análisis. Con el objeto de evitar esta dificultad, algunas veces se ha sugerido que el cumplimiento de un imperativo les el valor semántico de I, y que este valor depende del concepto de verdad. En este artículo, explicamos es…Read more
  •  43
    Handbook of Legal Reasoning and Argumentation (edited book)
    with Colin Aitken, Amalia Amaya, Kevin D. Ashley, Carla Bagnoli, Giorgio Bongiovanni, Bartosz Brożek, Cristiano Castelfranchi, Samuele Chilovi, Marcello Di Bello, Jaap Hage, Kenneth Einar Himma, Lewis A. Kornhauser, Emiliano Lorini, Fabrizio Macagno, Andrei Marmor, Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco, Antonino Rotolo, Giovanni Sartor, Burkhard Schafer, Chiara Valentini, Bart Verheij, Douglas Walton, and Wojciech Załuski
    Springer Verlag. 2011.
    This handbook offers a deep analysis of the main forms of legal reasoning and argumentation from both a logical-philosophical and legal perspective. These forms are covered in an exhaustive and critical fashion, and the handbook accordingly divides in three parts: the first one introduces and discusses the basic concepts of practical reasoning. The second one discusses the main general forms of reasoning and argumentation relevant for legal discourse. The third one looks at their application in …Read more
  •  33
    Interpretive Arguments and the Application of the Law
    In Giorgio Bongiovanni, Gerald Postema, Antonino Rotolo, Giovanni Sartor, Chiara Valentini & Douglas Walton (eds.), Handbook of Legal Reasoning and Argumentation, Springer. pp. 495-517. 2011.
    Some philosophers have recently emphasized the similarities between lawmaking and the production of linguistic utterances in ordinary communication. Based on these similarities, they have defended a theory of legal interpretation that identifies the legal content of a lawmaking act with the communicative content of the authoritative “utterance”. While different versions of the theory differ with respect to which level of utterance content they regard as relevant, they agree that the theory’s sco…Read more
  •  12
    The Aristorcracy of All: Gargarella or the Constitutionalism of Equality
    Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía Política 6 (1). 2017.
    In this comment to the brilliant book on the Constitutionalism in Latin-America, Gargarella, it is accepted that perhaps is the equality the empty promise among the ideals of constitutionalism in this region of the world. It is also accepted that an important part of the reason for this absence of equality lies in the institutional design, in the engine room of the Constitution, concretely in an hypertrophy of presidentialism. A complementary suggestion is added: the ideal of a constitutional de…Read more
  •  12
    On Deontic Truth and Values
    Crítica. Revista Hispanoamericana de Filosofía 49 (146): 61-74. 2017.
    This article analyzes the thesis of ethical relativism, as defended by Alchourrón and Bulygin. These authors offer, on the one hand, a suggestive conception according to which the question “what are our obligations?” is equivalent to thinking about what is to be done; on the other hand, they defend a relativist conception of ethics. They present three objections to constructivist accounts of ethics that are not relativist: a) the argument of the burden of the proof; b) a version of the dilemma o…Read more
  •  25
    In this paper, I intend to articulate an answer to the powerful particularist objection against the notion of moral and legal reasoning based on universal principles. I defend a particular way of specifying and contextualising universal principles. I claim that this account preserves legal and moral justification conceived as subsumption to legal and moral principles. I also try to show how virtues can be reconciled with this account, i.e. what is the right place for virtues in legal adjudicatio…Read more
  •  12
    Schauer on Coercion, Acceptance, and Schizophrenia
    Ratio Juris 29 (2): 215-222. 2016.
    This article provides a comment on The Force of Law, which is Schauer's new and illuminating contribution to the place of law in our societies and in our lives. It constitutes a strong defence of the importance of coercion in law. First, I consider cases where the law is not able to motivate human behaviour adequately, in order to show that legal coercion is not always justified. Second, I examine the Rawlsian distinction between the ideal and the nonideal theory and its application to the theor…Read more
  • El encaje de las piezas del derecho
    Isonomía. Revista de Teoría y Filosofía Del Derecho 15 165-192. 2001.
  • Algunas observaciones sobre las nociones de orden jurídico y sistema jurídico
    with Navarro Pablo E.
    Análisis Filosófico 12 (2): 125. 1992.
  •  25
    The Dynamics of Legal Positivism. Some Remarks on Shiner's Norm and Nature
    with Pablo E. Navarro
    Ratio Juris 10 (3): 288-299. 1997.
  • The Reception of Norms, and Open Legal Systems
    with Pablo E. Navarro
    In Stanley L. Paulson & Bonnie Litschewski Paulson (eds.), Normativity and Norms: Critical Perspectives on Kelsenian Themes, Oxford University Press. 1998.
  •  55
    Legal Gaps and Conclusive Reasons
    with Pablo E. Navarro and Cristina Redondo
    Theoria 68 (1): 52-66. 2002.
    In his influential paper Legal Reasons, Sources and Gaps' reprinted in The Authority of Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), Raz says that legal gaps only exist when law speaks with uncertain voice or when it speaks with many voices, but there are no gaps when law is silent. In this later case, rules of closure, which are analytically true, prevent from the occurrence of gaps. According to Raz, if there is a gap in a legal system, then both the claim that there is a conclusive legal reas…Read more
  •  24
    In his article on pre-conventions, Celano presents, what the author calls, the Ontological Commitment Thesis and the Normative Bite Thesis. In this short comment, the author argues that the two theses are together both incompatible with the idea that pre-conventions are facts which have causal powers in human behaviour; also, if the ontological thesis is abandoned, normative determination could not be obtained. In other terms, the author argues that either pre-conventions are part of our causal …Read more
  •  308
    This paper deals with the question of the conflict of constitutional rights with regard to basic rights. Two extreme accounts are outlined: the subsumptive approach and the particularistic approach, that embody two main conceptions of practical rationality. Between the two approaches there is room for a range of options, two of which are examined: the proportionalist approach, which conserves the scope of rights restricting their stringency, and the specificationist approach, which preserves the…Read more