Robert Alexy (born 9 September 1945 in Oldenburg,

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) is a

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the U ...

and a legal philosopher. Alexy studied law and

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

. He received his J.D. in 1976 with the dissertation ''A Theory of Legal Argumentation'', and he achieved his

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including ...

in 1984 with a ''Theory of Constitutional Rights''. He is a professor at the

University of Kiel Kiel University, officially the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, (german: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in ...

and in 2002 he was appointed to the Academy of Sciences and Humanities at the University of Göttingen. In 2010 he was awarded the

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...

. Since 2008 the Universities of

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, Tucumán,

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, National University of San Marcos in Lima,

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, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Chapecó, Rio de Janeiro and

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awarded him the honorary doctorate degree.

Natural law theory

Alexy's

definition A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional definiti ...

of law looks like a mix of Kelsen's normativism (which was an influential version of

legal positivism Legal positivism (as understood in the Anglosphere) is a school of thought of analytical jurisprudence developed largely by legal philosophers during the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Jeremy Bentham and John Austin. While Bentham and Austin dev ...

) and Radbruch's legal naturalism (Alexy, 2002), but Alexy's theory of argumentation (Alexy, 1983) puts him very close to legal interpretivism. In ''The Argument From Injustice'', Alexy defends Radbruch's formula that injust or evil laws only lose their legal validity when they deliberately disavow justice and equality. He formulated law's relationship to morality on three theses: * The thesis of incorporation; each legal system contains principles. * The moral thesis; law must be related to a common moral. * The correctness thesis; law must be related to a just moral. At the heart of his theory is the claim to correctness: Law must necessarily claim to be correct, no matter how corrupt, lest it be self-contradictory and fundamentally illogical. As law coerces behaviour and gives individuals decisive reasons for acting, the correctness it claims must also be moral.

Publications

*Theorie der juristischen Argumentation. Die Theorie des rationalen Diskurses als Theorie der juristischen Begründung (Suhrkamp, 1983; first edition 1978) **Translated by Neil MacCormick as "A Theory of Legal Argumentation: The Theory of Rational Discourse as Theory of Legal Justification" (Clarendon, 1989) *Theorie der Grundrechte (Suhrkamp, 1985; second edition 1994) **Translated by Julian Rivers as "A Theory of Constitutional Rights" (Oxford University Press, 2002) *Mauerschützen (Vandenhoeck + Ruprecht, 1993) *Recht, Vernunft, Diskurs (Suhrkamp, 1995) *Der Beschluß des Bundesverfassungsgerichts zu den Tötungen an der innerdeutschen Grenze vom 24. Oktober 1996 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997) *Begriff und Geltung des Rechts (Verlag Karl Alber, 1992) **Translated by Stanley Paulson and Bonnie Litschewski Paulson as "The Argument from Injustice: A Reply to Legal Positivism" (Oxford University Press, 2002) *Elemente einer juristischen Begründungslehre, co-edited with Hans-Joachim Koch, Lothar Kuhlen and Helmut Rüßmann (Nomos, 2003)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexy, Robert 1945 births Living people 20th-century German philosophers Philosophers of law Jurists from Lower Saxony Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany German male writers People from Oldenburg (city) Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities

Natural law theory

Publications

Further reading

References