The Juridical Aspect
- What is due to an entity
- Restitution. (Dooyeweerd's word was Retribution, in its technical sense, not as revenge.)
rather than:
- e.g. Prevention
- Legal systems (which are only mechanisms we have formed to fulfil how we understand the kernel)
- Act of judging (which is often analytical)
- "Law and order"
- Proportionality (in a legal sense), appropriateness
- Recompense
- 'Rightness'
- Responsibilities
- Rights
- Norms and laws
- 'Essence'?
Note: SInce this aspect is post-social, the full development of these themes and kernel issues involves society. There is a personal element (such as individual ownership), but much of this aspect can only be understood in terms of society. (Maybe, however, ownership itself only makes sense in the context of society?)
Note that juridical relationships, centred on 'what is due', must be symmetrical, in that both parties in the relationship have a 'due' (even if it is a different due). This contrasts with ethical relationships, which are essentially assymetric.
- Law. Often seen as the epitomy of juridicality, Law is only
part of it. A body of law, with various powers to enforce it, is a mechanism to achieve, rather than the epitomy of, this aspect.
There can never be a law that tells us, with authority, "You must obey the law." The injunction to obey the Law comes from outside this aspect, often from the pistic aspect in which we have a vision of who we are and a deep (fundamentally religious) commitment to that vision.
Expert witnesses in a court case: and example of the non-absoluteness of juridical procedure: we rely on their good faith, honesty and lack of distortion. If not, then side A puts up an expert A1, side B puts up another expert B1 to examine A1, side A puts up another expert A2 to examine B1 and support A1, and so on, ad infinitum.
- The State (see below)
- Government
- Law courts
- By focusing on our responsibilities to all other things
in the creation that we encounter, we maintain right relationships
among them, and thus give them what is their due. This includes
animal rights, human rights, etc. Then justice and well-being
flourish. As the Bible says, "Rightness exalts a nation" (where
'rightness' is the Hebrew word tsedeq, which is at the root
of what is due.
- Injustice; denying people or animals what is due to them.
- Refusing to recognise juridical norms, and letting people do what they feel like.
- When restitution becomes revenge: a misconception of "what is due".
- Focussing too heavily on this aspect, even when properly understood, and even more so when seen as Law and Order, leaves us dour, unhappy people, making others even more unhappy.
- Obviously, discerning what is due requires laws of distictions from
the analytical aspect. But we must
go beyond that; see below.
- The legal idea of proportionality probably links closely with
the economic modality.
- And justice is an inherently social process.
- Precedent: notice the necessary aesthetic element here, of seeing the nuanced similarities between this case and others. But it is not an arbitrary similarity, but an 'essential' one.
The juridical aspect requires the analytical for clear thinking, but it is not bound to the analytical. There is a juridicality that is non-juridical. One example is the age at which a person becomes an adult, the proposal that a person becomes an adult overnight, and so a whole bunch of laws apply to that person one day that did not apply the previous day. But that is all we can do in an analytically elevated legal system.
- There is a close analogy between the juridical and the
ethical aspect, which results in them
often being confused with each other. Especially over the
idea of 'ought'.
- Aristotle reduces juridical to ethical: "Justice is conceived of as an ethical virtue." [NC II:147]. This is partly why we have conflated the two.
- Thinking that law can prevent evil and make people good. The heart of a person (or ego if you prefer), that which makes them do the evil or good, is not confined to the juridical aspect. It is more nearly linked with the pistic but in fact Dooyeweerd maintains that the there is something about the human heart that transcends all aspect.
- When religion becomes law, duty to God, it has been reduced to the juridical aspect. This is a tendency of the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic religions. They were the ones that offer the world the clearest notion of a God who is concerned with justice - but they too often think this is the highest thing about God. (Exacerbated by Aristotle's monarchianism?)
- The Blame Culture. Seeking someone to blame. Though there is an element of truth in blame: there is indeed restitution - the receiving of what is due - so we must not go the other way and try to escape blame.
(Often a teleological or even idolatrous reduction.)
People see politics, especially left-right politics, as the most
important issue. Not just during election time, as it is now in
the U.K. (18 March 1997) but also this reduction blinds people. But
I have recently been in email correspondence with some of my
fellow-Christians in the U.S.A. about green issues and about
socialism (I have never been a socialist and doubt if I ever shall be)
and have been appalled at their outright rejection of
socialism. To them it is ultimate evil. They seem to be worshiping
anti-socialism rather than the Living God. This seems to me an
example of idolatrous reduction - though, of course what we hear via
email might not reflect a person's real stance.
A solicitor was in the dock. While she was driving a passing cyclist clipped her wing mirror. Infuriated, she rammed him, driving her car at the bicycle and knocking him off. At the end of the trial, the judge gave her six months in jail, as an example. On the ground that "she used her car as a weapon."
As soon as I heard that I thought "Yes! That's it. That's exactly right." The judge had cut through all the issues to the essence of the situation.
That set me thinking. It is (good) judges, those whose discipline is the juridical, who are best able to identify the 'essence' of something, about which we intuitively feel "Yes, that's it!" I put this to a colleague who is a judge, and he modified it a little: the legal essence.
Does 'Essence' has to do with Law? Legal essence to do with juridical law, social essence to do with social law, physical essence to do with physical law, and so on? This links to Dooyeweerd's view that existence comes about by response to (aspectual) law. So does meaning.
Three types of norm:
- Aspectual norms, that define what is 'shalom', and which pertain whether we know of them or not, and whether or not society agrees about them
- Socially agreed norms, by which a society or group regulates the behaviour of its members
- Socially agreed norms that have been codified into law or legal framework
All have some link with this juridical aspect. But the latter two are specifically limited to this aspect, though other aspects (social and lingual) are involved.
Back to Index of Aspects.
This is part of The Dooyeweerd Pages, which explain, explore and discuss Dooyeweerd's interesting philosophy. Questions or comments would be welcome.
Copyright (c) 2004 Andrew Basden. But you may use this material subject to conditions.
Number of visitors to these pages: 
. Written on the Amiga with Protext.
Created: by 18 March 1997.
Last updated: 30 August 1998 rearranged and tidied. 19 April 1999 added non-absoluteness. 14 January 2001 various bits about reduction and relationship to analytical aspect. 7 February 2001 copyright, email. 14 March 2002 added Essence, Norms. 14 September 2002 Note after themes about being post-social. 4 March 2003 necessity of aesthetic for precedent, symmetric relshp, Aristotle's reduction. 22 July 2003 non.abs eg, new ending. 24 August 2005 new .nav,.end. 22 May 2008 replaced 'retribution' by 'restitution'.