7.2 The Grundnorm is the dichotomy of Is and Ought
7.2.1 The Grundnorm as Kantian Category?
Kelsen refers to Kantian and neo-Kantian epistemology – the transcendental method – as the source of inspiration for the core idea of his Pure Theory of Law.44 There is lively debate among Kelsen scholars over what the influence of the Marburg and South-west German neo-Kantian schools and of three of their main protagonists, Hermann Cohen, Heinrich Rickert and Rudolf Stammler, was upon Kelsen and whether the Pure Theory is consistent with that philosophical approach.45 The dogmatic orientation of this chapter and the extensiveness
42 Kelsen (1934a) supra note 2 at 64, 66; Kelsen (1960) supra note 2 at 197 (Ch 34 a), 199 (Ch 34 b);
Edel (1998) supra note 21 at 218; Paulson (1993) supra note 11 at 57; Priester (1984) supra note 6 at 223–225.
43 Kelsen (1934a) supra note 2 at 65; Delacroix (2004) supra note 8 at 508.
44 Hans Kelsen, Das Problem der Souverọnitọt und die Theorie des Vửlkerrechts. Beitrag zu einer reinen Rechtslehre (1920) 9–10 (FN 1); Kelsen (1934a) supra note 2 at 21–24; Kelsen (1960) supra note 2 at 204–205 (Ch 34 d); Hans Kelsen, Hauptprobleme der Staatsrechtslehre entwickelt aus dem Rechtssatze (2nd ed. 1923) iii–xxiii; Hans Kelsen, The Pure Theory of Law, ‘Labandism’ and neo-Kantianism. A letter to Renato Treves, in: Stanley L. Paulson, Bonnie Litschewski Paulson (eds), Normativity and norms. Critical perspectives on Kelsenian themes (1998) 169–175.
45 Alexy (2002) supra note 13; Eugenio Bulygin, An antinomy in Kelsen’s pure theory of law, 3 Ratio Juris (1990) 29–45, reprinted in: Stanley L. Paulson, Bonnie Litschewski Paulson (eds), Normativity and norms. Critical perspectives on Kelsenian themes (1998) 297–315; Edel (1998) supra note 21;
Stefan Hammer, A neo-Kantian theory of legal knowledge in Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law?, in:
Stanley L. Paulson, Bonnie Litschewski Paulson (eds), Normativity and norms. Critical perspectives
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and philosophical and intellectual-historical orientation of that debate make a re-telling or any substantial engagement prohibitive and unnecessary here.
The following will merely give a basic idea of Kelsen’s loose analogy. That the analogy was loose rather than strict, however, is a major point of the argu- ment. We will not go into the problems that may emerge by seeing the Grundnorm or the dichotomy as Category in the strict sense, but point out the useful in the analogy.
In Kritik der reinen Vernunft Immanuel Kant uses the concept of Kategorien (categories) as conditions (principles) of the possibility of all cognition:46
Consequently all synthesis, whereby alone is even perception possible, is subject to the categories. And, as experience is cognition by means of conjoined perceptions, the categories are conditions of the possibility of experience and are therefore valid a priori for all objects of experience.47
It is easy to see how Kelsen adapted this for the Grundnorm and how it is merely the expression of the Ought. For Kant, apperception (sensual raw data) is synthesised through the categories to enable cognition. Categories such as causal- ity allow apperception to make sense and thus enable us to cognise them. For Kelsen, the idea of the Ought (in the particular: the Grundnorm) enables us to synthesise certain data to be able to cognise norms as norms – as claims to be observed:
Insofar as only the presupposition of the Grundnorm makes it possible to cognise the subjective sense of the act creating the constitution . . . as its objective sense, that is as objectively valid legal norm, the Grundnorm can be called the transcendental-logical
on Kelsenian themes (1998) 177–194; Heidemann (1997) supra note 11; Heidemann (2002) supra note 32; Hans Kửchler, Zur transzendentalen Struktur der Grundnorm. Kritische Bemerkungen zur erkenntnistheoretischen Fundierung der ‘Reinen Rechtslehre’, in: Ludwig Adamovich, Peter Pernthaler (eds), Auf dem Weg zur Menschenwürde und Gerechtigkeit. Festschrift für Hans R.
Klecatsky (1980) 505–517; Leser (1982) supra note 31; Gerhard Luf, On the transcendental import of Kelsen’s Basic Norm, in: Stanley L. Paulson, Bonnie Litschewski Paulson (eds), Normativity and norms. Critical perspectives on Kelsenian themes (1998) 221–234; Paulson (1990b) supra note 15;
Stanley L. Paulson, Fakten/Wert-Distinktion: Zwei-Welten-Lehre und immanenter Sinn. Hans Kelsen als Neukantianer, in: Robert Alexy et al. (eds), Neukantianismus und Rechtsphilososphie (2002) 223–251; Günther Winkler, Rechtstheorie und Erkenntnislehre. Kritische Anmerkungen zum Dilemma von Sein und Sollen in der Reinen Rechtslehre aus geistesgeschichtlicher und erkenntnistheoretischer Sicht (1990).
46 Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781, 1787) A 111, B 126, 168.
47 ‘Folglich steht alle Synthesis, wodurch selbst Wahrnehmung mửglich wird, unter den Kategorien;
und da Erfahrung Erkenntnis durch verknüpfte Wahrnehmungen ist, so sind die Kategorien Bedingungen der Mửglichkeit der Erfahrung und gelten also a priori auch von allen Gegenstọnden der Erfahrung.’ Kant (1781, 1787) supra note 46 at B 161 (translation John Miller Dow Meiklejohn).
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condition of this cognition – if it is permissible to use a term of Kantian epistemology by analogy.48
We will return to the difference between the ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ senses later (Section 7.2.2). For the moment we only need to note that while Kelsen’s emphasis on philosophical sources and the details of the theory vary over the decades (see the narrow conception of the duality of the category of causality and attribution in 193449 as against the broader conception of ‘Ought’ in the opus postumum of 1979),50 his theory, rather than the details of his philosophical analogies, remains substantially the same throughout.
Since Kant created an epistemology for the realm of ‘reality’ and Kelsen one for the realm of ‘values’,51 the analogy is limited in explaining Kelsenian theory.52 Kant is adamant that categories cannot have a use except their application to objects of experience,53 which presents a problem for Kelsen: what is the ‘experience’ relative to norms? He takes it to be the same as that of ‘regular’ cognition, i.e. sense-data.
The norm is an interpretation of reality (Deutungsschema). A man dressed in a certain way utters certain words; two persons sign a piece of paper – these data of ‘reality’
are given a specific sense to become a court judgment and a treaty, respectively.
The specific juridical sense, its specific legal meaning, is accorded to the act by a norm whose content refers to it, which confers to the act its legal meaning, so that the act may be interpreted according to this norm. The norm is a scheme of interpretation.54 This theory sounds a bit forced.55 Law’s ‘epiphenomena’ in the real world are ancillary and do not encapsulate their ‘existence’ as validity. The paper on which statutes are printed, a handshake or a psychological attitude can be explained both by causal reality and by normative interpretation, but the latter mode can only capture contingent and ephemeral, peripheral ‘emissions’, not the idea of norms, their ‘existence’. It is also true, however, that positive norms do have a real-world ‘tie-in point’, i.e. the real act of will whose sense is the norm.56 This is
48 ‘Sofern nur durch die Voraussetzung der Grundnorm ermửglicht wird, den subjektiven Sinn des verfassunggebenden Tatbestandes . . . als deren objektiven Sinn, das heiòt: als objektiv gỹltige Rechtsnormen zu deuten, kann die Grundnorm . . . – wenn ein Begriff der Kant’schen Erken- ntnistheorie per analogiam angewendet werden darf – als die transzendental-logische Bedingung dieser Deutung bezeichnet werden.’ Kelsen (1960) supra note 2 at 204 (Ch 34 d).
49 Kelsen (1934a) supra note 2 at 21–24.
50 Kelsen (1979) supra note 2 at 2 (Ch 1 IV).
51 Walter (1992) supra note 11 at 58.
52 Heidemann (1997) supra note 11 at 57.
53 Kant (1781, 1787) supra note 46 at B 146.
54 ‘Den spezifisch juristischen Sinn, seine eigentỹmliche rechtliche Bedeutung, erhọlt der fragliche Tatbestand durch eine Norm, die sich mit ihrem Inhalt auf ihn bezieht, die ihm die rechtliche Bedeutung verleiht, so daò der Akt nach dieser Norm gedeutet werden kann. Die Norm fungiert als Deutungsschema.’ Kelsen (1960) supra note 2 at 3 (Ch 4 a).
55 Kửchler (1980) supra note 45 at 509.
56 The same applies to fictional norms with the act of thought presupposing the act of will.
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more than a psychological state; Kelsen did not succumb to psychologism. That sense is its normative interpretation; the act of will is a necessary condition for the creation of a positive norm. It is not, however, its ‘existence’ as validity.
Gerhard Luf’s argument that ‘transcendental’ means ‘something different in the practical sphere than in the perspective of theoretical reason, drawn upon [by Kelsen] as an analogue’ is apposite,57 but the difference may not be as Kant, interpreted by Luf, puts it. The Pure Theory of Law’s analogy to the Kantian transcendental method – pace Kelsen and his exegetics – may be much more radical, but would tie in with another strain of Hans Kelsen’s theory (Section 7.2.3). It is not the apperception of ‘reality’ that can be cognised either by way of theoretical categories or by the ‘Ought-Category’. Rather, the apperception of
‘reality’ cognised through a theoretical Category is roughly analogous to the cog- nition of the ontology of norms existing as ideal ideas in an ideal sense (Reich des Sollens) through the Grundnorm. It is not so much a clumsy epistemological re- orientation of the cognition of reality, but an epistemology of the second sphere, the sphere of the Ought (of all the norms that are valid) through the idea of the Ought, represented for a normative order by the Grundnorm. Geert Edel’s inter- pretation of Cohen’s theories as Platonic, rather than purely Kantian, may help us in this respect, even though he does not see quite the same Platonism in the idea of norms as presented here. This ideal Ideal may be likened to Plato’s Ideals or Forms.58 In keeping with Kant, however, cognition in this sense creates its object (Section 7.3).59
The search of some for a singular philosophical basis for Kelsen’s Grundnorm theory is not very helpful. It is submitted that Kelsen only used philosophers’
theories as a didactical tool, i.e. to explain the unknown by the well known. He borrows ideas and uses them for his own edifice.60 In a specific sense his theory is eclectic, because it is oriented toward a theory instinctively felt to be true, not toward strict compliance with a philosopher’s theory.61 This means a liberation from the stringency of philosophical traditions, which allows Kelsen to build up a theory that shows the possibilities of the cognition of the Ought in the first place.
The Grundnorm is sui generis. While the idea of the Kantian Category is a useful reference point and springboard, it is not exhaustive of his theory of norms.
57 Luf (1998) supra note 45 at 225.
58 Edel (1998) supra note 21 at 196.
59 Alexy (2002) supra note 13 at 195.
60 Heidemann (1997) supra note 11 at 56–57.
61 A passage from Otto Apelt’s introduction to his translation of Plato’s Parmenides may be apposite in this respect. ‘Matters of pure cognition are no different than empirical science is: discovery pre- cedes an explanation of the discovery. The thinker draws a philosophical viewpoint from life and from Zeitgeist. The viewpoint is first presented to his gaze and is formed as fixed conviction, before he is able to justify [found, explain] it . . .’ ‘Es ist mit den Sachen der reinen Einsicht nicht anders als in den Gebieten der Erfahrungswissenschaften: die Entdeckung geht der Erklọrung des Entdeckten voraus. Aus dem Leben und dem Zeitgeist bildet sich dem Denker seine philoso- phische Gesamtansicht; sie stellt sich seinem Blick zuerst dar und ist ihm zur feststehenden ĩberzeugung geworden, ehe er imstande ist sie vollstọndig zu begrỹnden . . .’; Otto Apelt, Einleitung, in: Otto Apelt (ed.), Platons Dialog Parmenides (2nd ed. 1922) 29–30.
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