past.These are ideas, according to which, the just punishment of a crime or offence derives its just character from the very idea that the action itself violates some sacrosanct dictate, in this case the sacrosanct dictates of the legal order itself. If it were not the case that the delinquent assumedly had violated an inviolate value or norm, then the punishing parties’ acts of punishment in turn would violate the culprit’s intrinsic sanctity without just cause, whereby the execution of punishment would entail that a wrong had been committed rather than corrected. However, Hägerström does not deny the existence or the justification of the sense of outrage that arises whenever a miscarriage of justice occurs. What he denies is that it is necessary that these emotions correspond to supernatural circumstances and supernatural values for their proper justification.To Hägerström, the connection to the commonly occurring evaluations of society constitutes sufficient grounds for justification of a feeling, such as a sense of outrage. Consequently, an emotion needs no metaphysical superstructure for its justification proper.411 Nor does a rule of law. A reading of “On Fundamental Problems of Law” reveals it to be Hägerström’s jurisprudential legacy. In this article, he summarizes his critique of the imperative-theory, the idea of intrinsically just retribution, and the doctrine of intrinsic illegality. In addition, he implies that these theories independently, or taken together, serve a pronounced political function.The imperativetheory advocates that the state, legislator, or sovereign, is endowed with metaphysical powers and therefore has corresponding legal rights to create objectively binding rights and duties and confer and impose them on private individuals as seen fit. Consequently, whatever the supreme authority of the land commands, is just, and therefore objectively binding, hence retribution or retaliation, which necessarily inflicts an evil on a person (the misa ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 505 6 . 5. 5 conclus ions 411 Hägerström, “Principundersökning,” p. 225; “Fundamental Problems,” p. 366.
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