motives lie behind an act of law for that act to function as a legal fact resulting in certain legal consequences. The ultimate goal and aim of the will has no isolated meaning per se for the invocation of a legal consequence, which in general is connected to an act rather than to its motives.Therefore, if an expression of will, an action, contravenes the dictates of the law and expresses illegality positively, then the legal order enters into action, and according to the violated legal norm applies the corresponding legal consequence.286 For instance, even if a debtor’s initial subjective intent was to default from performance (that is, act illegally), the underlying obligation may nevertheless be fulfilled without any subjective intent on the part of the debtor to do so (by, for instance, a third party’s intervention or the debtor’s performance by mistake).287 It is therefore safe to assume that the existence of an illegal will does not by itself have any special legal consequences attached to it.288 What matters is the external behavior of the legal subject, and the external effects of these acts of law, but not the legal subject’s inner and unexpressed volitions and feelings. Hence, so-called objective illegality, whatever that is, does not invariably bring about any consequences for the content of the law. One cannot thus deduce the existence of provision of positive law from the concept of illegality itself. In Stat och rätt, Hägerström’s distinguishes between two types of obligation: the legal and the moral obligations, of which the legal obligation is a sub-category to obligations proper.The legal obligation is defined by an externally placed restraint upon the will, while the moral obligation’s restraint is of an internal, mop a r t v i , c h a p t e r 6 468 286 Hägerström, Stat och rätt, pp. 122-123. 287 Ibid., pp. 124-125. 288 Ibid., p. 125. 6 . 2 . 1. 1 Obligations in General, the Moral Obligation, and in Particular, the Legal Obligation
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