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Communication withCard Index Boxes

Luhmann’s Law

Yhteiskuntateorioiden oikeus

6 April 2011

10/04/23 1Centre of Excellence “Foundations of European Law and Polity” / Dr. Sabine Frerichs


1. Who is who? Ego and Alter

2. Theory of Social Systems

3. Law as a Social System

4. Problems of World Society

Structure



Who is Who?Ego and Alter



Niklas Luhmann(1927-1998)

1946-1949 legal studies at Freiburg University

1949 Dr. jur.

1949-1953 legal clerkship in Lüneburg

1954-1962 civil servant in Lüneburg

(1954-1955 at the Higher Administrative Court)

1960-1961 administrative sciences at Harvard University

1962-1965 University for Administrative Sciences Speyer

1965-1968 Social Research Centre at Münster University

(1965-1966 studies of sociology at Münster University

1966 Dr. sc. pol and Habilitation in sociology

1968-1969 acting professor at Frankfurt University

1968-1993 professor for sociology at Bielefeld University



Luhmann’s Lifelong Project (I)

• “When I was admitted at the Sociology Faculty of the Bielefeld University, created 1969, I found myself confronted with the requirement to indicate research projects in which I was involved. The description of my project at that time and since then has been: theory of the society; duration: 30 years; costs: none.” (Luhmann 1997a, 11; own translation)



Luhmann’s Lifelong Project (II)

• “Our flight must take place above the clouds, and we must reckon with a rather thick cloud cover. We must rely on our instruments. Occasionally, we may catch glimpses below of a land with roads, towns, rivers, and coastlines that reminds us of something familiar, or glimpses of a larger stretch of landscape with the extinct volcanoes of Marxism. But no one should fall victim to the illusion that these points of reference are sufficient to guide our flight.” (Luhmann 1995, l)



“Card 21/3d26g53 is for Habermas”


Luhmann’s Lifelong Partner (I)


Luhmann’s Lifelong Partner (II)

• “As the result of extensive work with this technique a kind of second memory has come about, an alter ego, by which it is constantly possible to communicate. Similar to our own memories, it is not organized through and through, and neither is there a hierarchy, and certainly there is no linear structure like a book would have. But precisely because of this, it gains a life independent of its author’s. The notes taken as a whole may only be described as disorder, but nevertheless it is a disorder without a random internal structure.” (Luhmann 1992, 57)



Monographs on Law

1965 Öffentlich-rechtliche Entschädigung rechtspolitisch

betrachtet – 1965 Grundrechte als Institution: Ein Beitrag zur

politischen Soziologie – 1966 Recht und Automation in der

öffentlichen Verwaltung: Eine verwaltungswissenschaftliche

Untersuchung – 1969 Legitimation durch Verfahren – 1972

Rechtssoziologie – 1974 Rechtssystem und Rechtsdogmatik –

1981 Ausdifferenzierung des Rechts: Beiträge zur Rechts-

soziologie und Rechtstheorie – 1986 Die soziologische

Beobachtung des Rechts – 1993 Das Recht der Gesellschaft



Other Monographs

1970 Soziologische Aufklärung: Aufsätze zur Theorie sozialer Systeme – 1975

Soziologische Aufklärung 2: Aufsätze zur Theorie der Gesellschaft – 1980

Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik 1 – 1981 Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik 2 – 1981

Soziologische Aufklärung 3: Soziales System, Gesellschaft, Organisation – 1982 Liebe als

Passion – 1984 Soziale Systeme – 1986 Ökologische Kommunikation – 1987 Soziologische

Aufklärung 4: Beiträge zur funktionalen Differenzierung der Gesellschaft – 1988 Die Wirtschaft

der Gesellschaft – 1989 Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik 3 – 1990 Die Wissenschaft der

Gesellschaft – 1990 Soziologische Aufklärung 5: Konstruktivistische Perspektiven – 1991

Soziologie des Risikos – 1992 Beobachtungen der Moderne – 1993 Das Recht der

Gesellschaft – 1995 Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik 4 – 1995 Soziologische Aufklärung 6:

Die Soziologie und der Mensch – 1996 Die Realität der Massenmedien – 1997 Die

Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft – 1997 Die Kunst der Gesellschaft – 2000 Die Politik der

Gesellschaft – 2000 Die Religion der Gesellschaft – 2000 Organisation und Entscheidung –

2002 Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft – 2002 Einführung in die Systemtheorie – 2005

Einführung in die Theorie der Gesellschaft – 2008 Die Moral der Gesellschaft



Articles on Law1967 Gesellschaftliche und politische Bedingungen des Rechtsstaates – 1967 Positives Recht und Ideologie – 1969 Funktionale Methode und juristische Entscheidung – 1969 Funktionen der Rechtssprechung im politischen System – 1970 Positivität des Rechts als Voraussetzung einer modernen Gesellschaft – 1970 Zur Funktion der "Subjektiven Rechte" – 1970 Die Funktion der Gewissensfreiheit im öffentlichen Recht – 1970 Evolution des Rechts – 1970 Gesetzgebung und Rechtssprechung im Spiegel der Gesellschaft – 1972 Rechtstheorie im interdisziplinären Zusam-menhang – 1972 Systemtheoretische Beiträge zur Rechtstheorie – 1973 Die juristische Rechts-quellenlehre aus soziologischer Sicht – 1973 Gerechtigkeit in den Rechtssystemen der modernen Gesellschaft – 1974 Die Funktion des Rechts: Erwartungssicherung oder Verhaltenssteuerung? – 1975 The Legal Profession: Comments on the Situation in the Federal Republic of Germany – 1976 Rechtsprechung als professionelle Praxis – 1976 Ausdifferenzierung des Rechts-systems – 1979 Selbstreflexion des Rechtssystems: Rechtstheorie in gesellschaftstheoretischer Perspektive – 1980 Kommunikation über Recht in Interaktionssystemen – 1983 Bürgerliche Rechtssoziologie: Eine Theorie des 18. Jahrhunderts – 1983 Die Einheit des Rechtssystems – 1984 Die Theorie der Ordnung und die natürlichen Rechte – 1984 The Self-Reproduction of the Law and its Limits – 1985 Einige Probleme mit "reflexivem Recht" – 1986 Die Codierung des Rechtssystems – 1988 Closure and Openness: On Reality in the World of Law – 1988 Positivität als Selbstbestimmtheit des Rechts – 1988 The Third Question: The Creative Use of Paradoxes in Law and Legal History – 1988 Zwei Seiten des Rechtsstaates – 1988 Law as a Social System – 1990 Verfassung als evolutionäre Errungenschaft – 1990 Die Stellung der Gerichte im Rechtssystem – 1991 Steuerung durch Recht? Einige klarstellende Bemerkungen – 1991 Die Geltung des Rechts – 1993 Das Paradox der Menschenrechte und drei Formen seiner Entfaltung – 1995 Juristische Argumentation: Eine Analyse ihrer Form


Theory of Social Systems



On Systems (I)

• “The following considerations assume that there are systems. Thus they do not begin with epistemological doubt. They also do not advocate a ‘purely analytical relevance’ for systems theory. […] Thus the concept of system refers to something that is in reality a system and thereby incurs the responsibility of testing its statements against reality.” (Luhmann 1995, 12)

• “Our thesis, namely, that there are systems, can now be narrowed down to: there are self-referential systems. This means first of all, in an entirely general sense: there are systems that have the ability to establish relations with themselves and to differentiate these relations from relations with their environment.“ (Luhmann 1995, 13)



On Systems (II)

• Living Systems

Biology

• Conscious Systems

Psychology

• Social Systems

Sociology



• “[T]he basal process of social systems, which produces their elements, can only be communication.” (Luhmann 1995, 138)

• “Communication is the processing of selection. […] [It] must be viewed [...] as a three-part selection process.” (Luhmann 1995, 140):

• Accordingly, communication is the result of, first, the selective attention of the sender, second, the selective attention of the receiver, and, third, the selectivity of the information itself.

On Social Systems (I)



• “We are dealing with social, not psychic systems. We assume that social systems are not composed of psychic systems, let alone of bodily human beings. Therefore, psychic systems belong to the environment of social systems.

• Of course, they are a part of the environment that is especially relevant for the formation of social systems. […] Such environmental relevance for the construction of social systems constrains what is possible, but it does not prevent social systems from forming them-selves autonomously and on the basis of their own elemental operations.” (Luhmann 1995, 255)

On Social Systems (II)



On Social Systems (III)

• Interaction systems emerge when individuals are co-present and perceive each other in face-to-face communication.

• Organization systems coordinate the actions of individuals (members) through decisions that are taken according to certain conditions.

• Function Systems operate on the basis of system-specific communication media; they follow a distinctive, binary code which is applied according to certain, alterable programmes.



On Function Systems (I)

• Legal System (legality)

• Economic System (payment)

• Political System (power)

• Scientific System (truth)

• Mass Media System (information)

• Health System (health)

• Education System (selection)

• Art System (art)

• Religious System (transcendence)



• “If function systems are operationally closed systems, their differentiation will produce more independencies and more dependencies at the same time –

• more independencies because of their operational closure and their highly selective structural couplings,

• and more dependencies because society can maintain its present achievements only if all the function systems operate and reproduce themselves at an adequate level.” (Luhmann 1997b, 75)

On Function Systems (II)



Law as a Social System



1. The Location of Legal Theory2. The Operative Closure of the Legal System3. The Function of Law4. Coding and Programming5. Justice, a Formula for Contingency6. The Evolution of Law7. The Position of Courts in the Legal System8. Legal Argumentation9. Politics and Law10. Structural Couplings11. The Self-description of the Legal System12. Society and its Law

(Luhmann 2004, contents)

Law as a Social System (I)



Law as a Social System (II)

PoliticalSystem

EconomicSystem

statutory law contract

law

case law

Legal System



• “Positive law is valid, because it could be changed by decision. It is valid on the grounds of its revisability and can, in spite of that, achieve a relative consistency over time, if at the very moment nobody thinks of, or nobody has the possibility or power, to initiate a revision procedure.” (2000, 35; original emphasis, own translation)

On Law’s Positivity (I)



• “As one looks at attempts to deal with the problem of the contextualization of the positivity of law, they leave the option of formulating the problem – which is only insufficiently defined as ‘positivity’ – in conceptually different ways. We will do this in the following chapter [ch. 3: The function of law] with the help of systems theory.” (Luhmann 1995, 78)

On Law’s Positivity (II)



• “Luhmann was originally trained as a lawyer, and his reflections on law combine the immense historical range and synthetic abstraction of his other inquiries with a very detailed practical and institutional knowledge of what actually happens in the interpretation and application of the law.

• The result is a piece of theoretical sociology, well supported by factual and historical analysis, which raises entirely new questions about the role of law and the rule of law in modern societies, and which disturbs many commonplace assumptions about such matters.” (Thornhill 2004, 601)

Review: Law and Sociology



• “[M]odern society is characterized and constituted by an evolutionary logic of differentiation, through which the social sub-systems of politics, law, the economy, art, medicine, religion and education are differentiat-ed out from each other and establish self-referential modes of communication for the fulfilment of their own specific internal functions.

• On this account, law is a positivized, operatively closed, and autopoietic sub-system of society, whose one and only function is to stabilize ‘normative ex-pectations‘ over time […].” (Thornhill 2004, 601-602)

Review: Basic Argument (I)



• “To accomplish this, law generates the ‘binary scheme’ or code legal/illegal to determine whether its normative expectations are fulfilled or disappointed;

• by establishing this code the law also communicates information to itself and decides which are the social issues requiring legal regulation and which not,

• and the code thus provides the basic mechanism through which law avoids conflation with politics, art, economics, etc.” (Thornhill 2004, 602; references omitted)

Review: Basic Argument (II)



• “Luhmann’s work has generated great controversy amongst legal theorists who think about the law within moral parameters or whose ideas about the law are tied to socially interventionist or transform-ative ambitions.

• Luhmann construes law, quite simply, as a con-tingently self-reproducing subsystem of society whose social functions are determined by law and by law alone, not by any external factors or substantial considerations, and whose communications relate to law and to law alone, not to broader social problems or disputes.” (Thornhill 2004, 602)

Review: Law and Politics (I)



• “Underlying the conceptual complexity and abstraction of Luhmann’s sociology, therefore, is always a neutral – and indeed, at times, surprisingly benign – account of how modern societies work, and of how law operates in these societies.

• Law, he argues, is nothing more than a formally normative medium whose functions are quite strictly limited and closely demarcated against those of other sub-systems, especially politics.” (Thornhill 2004, 603)

Review: Law and Politics (II)



• “Sociologists and political theorists who have wondered about Luhmann’s political orientation will thus find clear evidence in this book that Luhmann supports a political outlook which in some respects replicates and reformulates aspects of nineteenth-century Liberalism, [that is,]

• insisting on the value of a constitutional separation of power and law, but reluctant to expect too much of law as a potential mechanism for distributing material goods, for guaranteeing social welfare and equality, or for maintaining broad-ranging societal control.” (Thornhill 2004, 603)

Review: Political Side-Effects



• “The welfare state produces completely new problems for the legal supervision of politics and leads to deformations of legal doctrine that undermine the predictability of legal decisions.

• On the other hand, the corresponding judicial ‘legislation’ of constitutional courts affects politics in a way that can hardly be called ‘democratic’

• (the degree of centralization of the emerging Euro-pean Union will not be decided by the governments in London, Paris or Berlin but by the European Court in Luxembourg).” (Luhmann 1997b, 76)

One Recent Example



Problems of World Society



• “[W]e have now clear and theoretically consistent arguments for a single world society. The autopoietic system of this society can be described without any reference to regional particularities. This certainly does not mean that these differences are of minor importance. But a sociological theory that wants to explain these differences, should not introduce them as givens, that is, as independent variables; it should rather start with the assumption of a world society and then investigate, how and why this society tends to maintain or even increase regional inequalities.” (Luhmann 1997b, 73)

On World Society (I)



• “The world society has reached a higher level of complexity with higher structural contingencies, more unexpected and unpredictable changes [...] and, above all, more interlinked dependencies and interdependencies. This means that causal constructions [...] are no longer possible from a central and therefore ‘objective’ point of view. They differ depending upon observing systems, that attribute effects to causes and causes to effects, and this destroys the ontological and the logical assumptions of central guidance. We have to live with a polycentric, polycontextural society.” (Luhmann 1997b, 75)

On World Society (II)



Parsons versus Luhmann

Talcott Parsons‘centred’ notion of law and society interpenetration

Niklas Luhmann ‘de-centred’ notion of law and society autopoiesis

economy(money)

polity(power)

community(norms)

culture(values)

economic system(money)

political system(power)

legal system(law)

scientific system(truth)

law

Social system



• “Traditional societies included and excluded persons by accepting or not accepting them in family households, and families (not individuals) were ordered by stratification.

• Modern society includes and excludes persons via function systems, but in a much more paradoxical way. Function systems presuppose the inclusion of every human being, but, in fact, they exclude persons that do not meet their requirements.” (Luhmann 1997b, 70)

On Inclusion/Exclusion (I)



• “Many individuals have to live without certified birth and identity cards, without any school education and without regular work, without access to courts and without the capacity to call the police. One exclusion serves as an excuse for other exclusions. At this level, and only at this level, society is tightly integrated, but in a negative way. And modern values, such as equality and freedom, serve as cover terms to preserve an illusion of innocence --equality as equal opportunity and freedom as allowing for individual (and not societal) attribution.” (Luhmann 1997b, 70)

On Inclusion/Exclusion (II)



• “The worst imaginable scenario might be that the society of the next century will have to accept the metacode of inclusion/exclusion.

• And this would mean that some human beings will be persons and others only individuals;

• that some are included into function systems for (successful or unsuccessful) careers and others are excluded from these systems, remaining bodies that try to survive the next day;

(to be continued)

On Inclusion/Exclusion (III)



(continued)

• that some are emancipated as persons and others are emancipated as bodies;

• that concern and neglect become differentiated along this boundary;

• that tight coupling of exclusions and loose couplings of inclusions differentiate fate and fortune:

• and that two forms of integration will compete: the negative integration of exclusions and the positive integration of inclusions.” (Luhmann 1997b, 76)

On Inclusion/Exclusion (IV)



• Luhmann, Niklas, 1992: Kommunikation mit Zettelkästen. In: Kieserling, Andreas (ed.): Universität als Milieu. Bielefeld, pp. 53-61

• Luhmann, Niklas, 1995 (1984): Social Systems. Stanford: Stanford University Press

• Luhmann, Niklas, 1997a: Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (two volumes). Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.

• Luhmann, Niklas, 1997b: Globalization or World Society: How to Conceive of Modern Society?

• Luhmann, Niklas, 2000: Die Rückgabe des zwölften Kamels: Zum Sinn einer soziologischen Analyse des Rechts. In: Teubner, Gunther (ed.): Die Rückgabe des zwölften Kamels: Niklas Luhmann in der Diskussion über Gerechtigkeit. Stuttgart: Lucius und Lucius, pp. 3-60.

• Luhmann, Niklas, 2004 (1993): Law as a Social System. Oxford: Oxford University Press

• Thornhill, Chris, 2004: Review of Law as a Social System. In: Sociological Review, Vol. 53, No. 4, pp. 601-604

References


www.helsinki.fi/katti/foundations [email protected] communication with card index boxes...

Documents

sabine frerichs slide

soziologische aufklrung

social research centre

mnster university

bielefeld university

freiburg university

frankfurt university

harvard university