Lundstedt’s critique of causality is connected to the criticized doctrines and their specific understanding of causality, which in general were more in line with causality according to philosophy and natural science than causality according to law. According to Lundstedt the different doctrines of causality have precious little to do with jurisprudence, especially if compared with the doctrines of natural sciences such as, for example anatomy, surgery, medicine, or chemistry. Incidentally the jurist is more helped of knowledge in the aforementioned areas when deciding a case than he is in the doctrines of philosophical causality.250 Contrary to the doctrines of philosophical causality, the natural sciences actually help the jurist to decide whether or not there actually exists a causal relationship between an event, cause and any alleged effects. Hence Lundstedt argues, the actual determination of whether or not an actual effect was caused by one event or another is a fact that can only be concluded on the basis of expert knowledge, rather than on legal or philosophical knowledge, as the latter two categories of knowledge are worthless in the determination of physical reality.251 It is at the point that a causal relationship between one event and another has been established, that expert knowledge in law becomes useful, since legal knowledge informs the jurist whether or not a natural chain of events can be subsumed under a rule of law, and whether or not some form of legal liability, penal or indemnity liability, is applicable to an act.252 According to Lundstedt’s analysis, the doctrines of causality of penal and tort law are as a rule misguided, insofar as they disregard the fact that the legal relevance of an act and a damaging effect, in other words the construction of the legal norm, is ultimately decided by social evaluations and conventions, rather than by an analysis of the concept of causality itself.253This, according a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 457 250 Lundstedt, Grundlinjer I, p. 204; Grundlinjer II:2, pp. 311 and 319-320. 251 Lundstedt, Grundlinjer II:2, p. 329. 252 Ibid. 253 Ibid., p. 326.
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