tural law refers to as existing phenomena, are in fact cognitively inaccessible, and thus any claim that they exist is epistemologically unwarranted. One can thus argue that such ideas at best have reality in Hägerström’s logical sense of the word. But since natural law theory claims that the non-existing, and that which cannot exist, nevertheless exists, then the phenomena in question must be disregarded in the scientific analysis, and, according to Hägerström’s theory and critique, seen for what they really are- fantasies.The law as it stands is thus merely objective in the widest sense of the word. According to the will-theory, rules of law are either made up of commands, imperatives, emanating from the law-making subject, the legislator (the imperative-theory of law), or made up of declarations about the legislator’s will as addressed to private citizens (the declarative theory).119 The difference between these two sets of different will-theories can be summed up as follows: The rules of law either command or declare the legislator’s will. According to the imperative-theory, the legislator commands a certain state of affairs or attitude, while the legislator’s will, according to the declarative theory, is revealed through the rules of law. In either case, disobedience towards the rules of law invariably will set the coercive machinery in motion, whereby the legislator, through the organs of state, corrects the erroneous behavior. And irrespective of whether or not the legislator commands that the subject shall refrain from theft, or declares, informs, that theft will be punished, the real effects are that a crime solved brings about punishment, and that the perpetration of a crime incurs penal liability. The main differences between the imperative-theory and the declarative theory are superficial with respect to their effects upon p a r t v, c h a p t e r 3 328 3. 4 impe rat ive-theory and declarat ive-theory 119 Olivecrona, Rättsordningen, pp. 101-102. Swedish: deklarationsteorin.
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