As a comment on Francesco Viola’s work about the future of Law and his insistence in the necessity of legal adjudication takes into account the circumstances of the particular case, I shall intend to show the reasons that led to a view of rules as general and abstract norms, almost algorithmically applicable to individual cases. After I shall refer to the well-known crisis that this idea generated and the introduction of the principles in the law’s image. Arguing, as conclusion, that this image of Law as a two storey building (with two floors one for rules, another for principles is not adequate and it should be substituted with the image of a single storey building (with only the ground floor), in where rules and defeaters live together, defeaters being something like gargoyles<7i>, that can modify, alter and make more accurate the rules through allowing the use of moral considerations and moral argument.

A partir del trabajo de Francesco Viola sobre el futuro del derecho y de su insistencia en la relevancia de que la aplicacion de las normas tome en cuenta las circunstancias del caso particular, intentare mostrar las razones que llevaron a una concepcion de las reglas como normas generales y abstractas, aplicables casi algoritmicamente a los casos individuales. Despues me referire a la conocida crisis que ello genero y a la introduccion de los principios en esta imagen. Para terminar arguyendo que esta imagen del derecho como un edificio de dos plantas, las reglas y los principios, no es tampoco adecuada y debe ser sustituida por una imagen de un edificio con una sola planta, con reglas y defeaters, los defeaters siendo algo como gargolas, que habitan juntos y remiten a las consideraciones morales, a la argumentacion moral.