natural law really formulate and decide the rules of the state, then one must ask whether or not these ideas really constitute rules of law, for they could just as well constitute elements of a political program. Hägerström first set out to investigate the question of whether or not legal positivism really is completely positivistic, as well as investigating what really determines penal jurisprudence as being a science - natural law or positive law? According to his view, natural law at best constitutes a superstructure to positive law, meta-law, that serves a practical purpose for jurists insofar as it lends the rules of law a certain air of philosophical respectability, which obviously is more attractive than the adducing of mere social and political considerations.336 He set out to investigate three issues.The questions were these: What was the basis of the state’s right to punish? Did penal jurisprudence directly apply notions of natural law?Was penal jurisprudence indirectly dependent upon natural law, even though penal law was not?337 Hägerström addressed these issues by analyzing the ideas of three influential and eminent scholars of penal law - Karl Binding, Johan Hagströmer and Johan C.W.Thyrén. First, Karl Binding. Karl Binding (1841-1920) construes the norms of the law as being norms establishing personal obligations of actions or omissions.338 What does this really mean? Is it, that whoever establishes the norm, through a command, also commands and imposes a corresponding obligation to obey? This would be nonsensical, for p a r t v i , c h a p t e r 6 484 336 Cf. Hägerström, De socialistiska idéernas historia, pp. 26-30, 117, 181-182, and 252-259. 337 Hägerström, “Naturrätt?,” p. 324. 338 Binding, Normen 1 (1916), pp. 96-101. 6 . 4 . 4 thre e que st ions and thre e author s 6 . 4 . 4 . 1 Karl Binding: di e normen und ihre übe rtretung
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