The Antinomies of Lon Fuller?

So yeah. Whilst I know that Fuller isn’t in my normal range of ‘critical’ theorists I am – as I said – giving him a good read. Enjoyable as he is I seem to detect a little bit of schizophrenia within his ‘concept’ of the law. On the one hand Fuller stresses the ‘internal morality of the law’, and notes that ‘a sufficiently gross departure from the principles of legality … would result in something that is not simply bad law, but not law at all’[1]. Furthermore, he expresses his general approval of a lot of Pashukanis’ work, and is at pains to point out the complexity of the law and its operation. Yet on the other hand he defines the law as “the enterprise of subjecting human conduct to the governance of rules”[2], the important thing to note here is ‘enterprise’. This is critique worthy, and I’ll go more in-depth later.

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[1] 197

[2] 122