the constitutional value theory of Z. Ziembiński
3.7. Third dilemma: substantive or procedural values?values?
3.7.1. Substantive theories of values
While the two above dilemmas bear on universal axiological and epistemological problems, the following five have direct resonance in the professional activity of lawyers and judges, as the third quandary is related to the question of the primacy of substantive or procedural theories of values. In legal philosophy, this issue particularly concerns the problem of justice,66 but cannot be reduced to it alone.67 Substantive theories share at least one assumption, according to which the concept of values (good, justice beauty, etc.) refers to objectively existing beings.68 The first group are supranaturalist theories, and also cognitivist and anti-naturalist ones, which are founded on Plato’s thesis about the real and ideal existence of values.69 This view was adopted and strengthened in Christian philosophy, e.g. Thomistic, where the ontological foundation of all values (goods) is God.70 Naturally, in the perspective of Christian philosophy, it is not only substantive values that are justified by God’s wisdom, but also procedural ones.
Another group of substantive theories of values comprises those naturalist theories yielding empirical (sociological, behavioural, etc.) opinions whose criterion of value distinction is factual and refers to a certain social or mental human condition. As has been pointed out, such an understanding of values corresponds with the assumptions of the naturalist version of cognitivism. This group also includes utilitarianism, correlating values with measurable human happiness and unhappiness (J. S. Mill).71
65 Ibidem, p. 26.
66 Cf. Stelmach, Współczesna filozofia interpretacji, pp. 135–142.
67 Theoretical-legal considerations also concern, i.a., substantive and formal rationality. Cf.
Krzysztof Pałecki, ed., Dynamika wartości w prawie (Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 1997), pp. 18–19.
68 I refer here to the classification of theories of justice proposed by R. Sarkowicz and J. Stelmach.
Cf. Sarkowicz, Stelmach, Teoria prawa, pp. 189–190.
69 Cf. Kasprzyk, Węgrzecki, Wprowadzenie do filozofii, p. 81.
70 Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Historia filozofii, vol. I (Warszawa: PWN, 2001), p. 276.
71 “The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as
The third group of substantive theories of values includes contemporary phenomenological concepts. They share the conviction that values exist a priori and absolutely, and that they are cognisable in “primordial experience,”72 i.e. by axiological intuition.73 Moreover, in the opinion of phenomenologists (Scheler, Hartmann, Tischner), values exist informally and autonomously from their
“carriers.”74 As has been pointed out, a special case is the concept presented by Ingarden, who claimed that values are not independent from the objects that are their carriers.75
The fourth group of substantive theories of values comprises “institutional”
views.”76 According to these, values are created as a result of the activity of a certain social, religious, state, legal and other institutions.77 This position is therefore moderately subjectivist and simultaneously naturalistic and cognitivist.
Institutional theories78 may be regarded as special cases of conventionalism, which claim that values are determined by means of a social contract.79 The argument propounded against these theories, in the sociology of law, is that the “axiological basis [of law] cannot be decreed” because it is a “product” of a complex process of conviction-shaping, stabilisation of positions, formulation
they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” John S. Mill, Utilitarianism (London: Parker, Son and Bourn 1863), pp. 9–10.
72 Beata Trochimska-Kubacka, Absolutyzm aksjologiczny. Rekonstrukcja oparta na aksjologii Ricketa, Schelera i Hartmanna (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1999), p. 45.
73 Cf. Marcin Pieniążek, entry: “Teoria etyki sytuacyjnej prawnika,” in Leksykon etyki prawniczej:
100 podstawowych pojęć, eds. Paweł Skuczyński, Sebastian Sykuna (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo C.H. Beck, 2013), pp. 405–406.
74 M. Scheler, “To, co aprioryczne i to, co formalne w ogóle,” in Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik, vol. 2 (Bern – Munich: 1966), p. 67, in Scheler, Adam Węgrzecki (Warszawa:
Wydawnictwo Wiedza Powszechna, 1975) pp. 139 et seq.
75 Roman Ingarden, “Czego nie wiemy o wartościach,” in Przeżycie – dzieło – wartość (Kraków:
Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1968) pp. 67–82. Cf. Bogdan Ogrodnik, Ingarden (Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 2000) p. 127.
76 Institution is defined as “a set of legal or customary norms concerning the organisation of a given sphere of life,” “a public establishment” within a certain area, “an organisation, or an agency based on defined norms,” etc. Cf. Władysław Kopaliński, Słownik wyrazów obcych i zwrotów obcojęzycznych z almanachem (Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza RYTM, 2006) p. 258.
77 R. Krajewski gives several possible classifications of institutions. Among other classes, the author divides them into courts and tribunals (including the Supreme Court, general courts, the Constitutional Tribunal, the Tribunal of State), main judiciary institutions (e.g. the Supreme Chamber of Control, National Broadcasting Council), Prosecution, law enforcement authorities (e.g. Prison Service, Railway Guards), professional associations of legal professionals (e.g. the Bar, legal advisers, the institution of a notary public), and other organs (e.g. a Parliamentary Committee of Investigation). Cf. Radosław Krajewski, Leksykon instytucji wymiaru sprawiedliwości i ochrony prawa (Warszawa: C.H. Beck, 2007).
78 Cf. Sarkowicz, Stelmach, Teoria prawa, p. 188.
79 Szyszkowska, Etyka, p. 13.
of ideals and ideologies, and their internalisation.80 It must be mentioned that institutional theories are only a step away from procedural theories, since the
“value-making” activity of bodies and organs is connected with the application of certain norms, rituals, etc.
3.7.2. Procedural theories of values
The question of preferences of substantive or procedural values touches upon the core of practical legal dilemmas. They are the more important since legal positivism elevated “procedurality” to a value in itself. It is notable that the last few decades of legal philosophy have brought about a renaissance of the procedural theory of justice, in the light of which, most simply, “just” means compliant with previously adopted rules.81 It is worth remarking in this context that J. Rawls, in A Theory of Justice, distinguishes “perfect” and “imperfect justice.”82 According to him, the former is when procedure in every case guarantees a decision’s compliance with the adopted rules, while the latter relates to this effect being attained in most cases.83 Rawls points out that, typically, decision-making procedures in social matters meet, at most, the requirements of imperfect procedural justice, the example of which is a criminal trial.84 As has been indicated, the procedural view of values does not, in legal philosophy, end with the question of justice. For example, in the legislative process, the substantive and formal rationality of the law maker may be distinguished.85 The literature also contains the division into the substantive and procedural rule of law.86
The procedural axiological perspective also comes into prominence in the concepts of the law of nature of changeable content,87 e.g. that of L. L. Fuller, who names eight principles of the rule of law, which can be regarded as procedural values: the generality of laws, due promulgation of laws, non-retroactivity of laws, clarity and intelligibility of laws, non-contradictoriness, that laws should not require conduct beyond the powers of norm-addressees, constancy over
80 Krzysztof Pałecki, “Zmiany w aksjologicznych podstawach prawa jako wskaźnik jego tranzycji,”
in Dynamika wartości w prawie (Kraków, Księgarnia Akademicka, 1997) p. 27.
81 Sarkowicz, Stelmach, Teoria prawa, p. 191.
82 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge-Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2009), p. 74.
83 Lech Morawski, Główne problemy współczesnej filozofii prawa. Prawo w toku przemian (Warszawa: LexisNexis, 2005), p. 210.
84 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 75.
85 Pałecki, “Zmiany w aksjologicznych,” p. 18.
86 Cf. Ziembiński, Wartości konstytucyjne, p. 85.
87 Stelmach, Współczesna filozofia interpretacji, p. 30.
time, congruence between official action and declared rule.88 In the widest procedural perspective, it may be said that all that has been created in keeping with certain rules is valuable (good, beautiful). Scheler’s phenomenology is an example of such a theory of moral good, where good is a result of an act of preference that chooses the values of superior order, e.g. spiritual (justice), which are ranked above the lower order values, e.g. utilitarian (pleasure).89 Let us add that one of the detailed problems in the procedural theory of values concerns determining their source, which may be God’s wisdom, a sovereign’s will, or an autopoietic legal system, etc. Here, the question of grounding appears, and as a result so does the issue of the reduction of procedural values to a certain being (as indicated, for example, in the formalised activity of some “value-making”
institution).
3.7.3. The lawyer or the judge and substantive and procedural values
It is to be stressed that a lawyer’s or judge’s practical dilemmas result from their daily confrontation with the dialectics of substantive and procedural values on different levels of the realisation of law (creation, interpretation, application, etc.).90 Such dialectics develop on the grounds of particular branches of law, especially when their “substantive” axiology is “enforced” with relevant procedural rules (private legal, penal legal, administrative legal, etc.). K. Pałecki, when analysing changes in the axiological-substantive foundations of a legal system, warns about the potential of taking “refuge in formalism and procedure both by law-makers and practitioners.”91 With the unfettered prevalence of procedural values over the material come risks indicated by critics of legal positivism, such as G. Radbruch. Such dominance also means the possibility of the untrammelled creation of axiology by rulers within legal security as formally understood.92 In this context Radbruch writes about “a conflict between legal certainty and justice, between an objectionable but duly enacted statute and a just law that has not been cast in statutory form.”93
88 See: Lon L. Fuller, “The Morality That Makes Law Possible,” in The Morality of Law: Revised Edition (NewHaven-London: Yale University Press, 1969), pp. 33–94.
89 Cf. Manfred S. Frings, Max Scheler – A Concise Introduction into the World of Great Thinker (Louvain: Duquesne University Press, 1965), pp. 113–120.
90 Cf. Stelmach, Współczesna filozofia interpretacji, p. 143.
91 Pałecki, “Zmiany w aksjologicznych,” pp. 12–13.
92 Stelmach, Współczesna filozofia interpretacji, pp. 145–146.
93 Gustav Radbruch, “Statutory Lawlessness and Supra-Statutory Law,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 2006, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 6–7.