indefensible when compared with the demands that society may place upon the judicature and its different sub-branches.434 Irrespective of the fact that the legislator might have been misled by the imperative-theory, the interpretation and application of the statute must be led by less capricious standards. Hägerström’s suggestion of interpretative standards is twofold, on the one hand, the anticipated effects that legislation has on the doings of members of society, and on the other, the specific interests that the legislative product expresses. Hägerström thus does not advocate a blind deference to the exact wording of the statute, as any such interpretation invariably comes into conflict with other interests of society, such as the sense of justice (which itself is not only the precursor to law, but also an effect of law), albeit bearing in mind that the determination of society’s evaluation of social goods and interests is easily confused for the interpreter’s own evaluations.435 Hägerström does not stop there. All that can be gained from the imperative-theory are gratuitous legal constructions, which are best set aside and abandoned by jurisprudence.436 All in all, it is the imperative-theory that is the leading cause explaining the unsatisfactory state of contemporary positivistic jurisprudence, because this theory, as with most other legal theories, lacks a valid factual foundation.In contrast with the demands of reality, the imperative-theory is founded upon indemonstrable premisses and gratuitous constructions, constructions that are supposed to (despite their lack of reality) constitute a firm basis for the science of law.What renders the imperative-theory useless is that its primary premiss, the fantasy of a commanding and prohibiting legal order, whose anthropomorphic will creates the law, is a fiction lacking any scientific corroboration, thus making any conclusion possible, either, or both, by use of conscious or a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 513 434 Cf. ibid.: pp. 325-326. 435 Ibid. 436 Ibid.: p. 326.
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