Imágenes del Derecho

Abstract

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.

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, that can modify, alter and make more accurate the rules through allowing the use of moral considerations and moral argument.