We could say that this first interpretation of the metaphor of the continuous Web is ontological: “Law is a homogeneous web” could be a statement about the nature of doctrinal categories – they are interconnected, not isolated. According to ontological interpretation, law is a homogeneous network of legal doctrines – rules, norms and principles. One idea expressed in the metaphor of the homogeneous Web is the networking of legal doctrine. While the law is a homogeneous network, the categorization of legal doctrine into individual domains (tort, property, contracts, etc.) does not accurately reflect the nature of the law. A classic example of this idea can be found by examining the boundary between tort and contract. One might think that there is a “seam” or a dividing line that clearly separates these two areas of education. For example, we might think that contracts are the law of voluntary transactions, while unlawful acts deal with unintentional (or unauthorized) transactions. Of course, there is something in this idea. Personal negotiations leading to a written and signed agreement are the paradigm of a contract and also represent a voluntary paradigmatic transaction. Assault – an unauthorized harmful contact – is both a clear tort right and a clearly unintentional transaction. An example can help.

Let us suppose we are trying to understand a rule about consent in criminal law. To understand the legal concept of consent, we may need to go beyond criminal law. The concept of consent in criminal law can be based on concepts of offences, contractual concepts, etc. In addition, it may be necessary for us to understand the relationship between the power of the courts to shape criminal law and the power of Parliament to enact laws that alter common law doctrines. Understanding this relationship requires knowledge of the law of interpretation of law (which is contained in opinions on many different statutes dealing with many different areas of education) as well as constitutional law, which governs the separation of powers and the nature of judicial and legislative power. One might think that everything one needs to know to understand consent in the criminal concept of consent could be learned from laws and criminal cases, but if the law is a homogeneous network, then knowledge of torts, contracts, constitutional law, etc. may be necessary for a complete understanding. Dworkin argues that legal decisions need to fit into the legal landscape, but that`s not the end of the story. There may be more than one decision that would meet the relevance criterion. For example, an ambiguous legal provision may have more than one reading consistent with precedents, statutes and other relevant legal documents. In this case, Dworkin argues, the judge should decide the case in a manner that is consistent with the best reasoning for the law.

In other words, the judge should ask, “What is the best normative theory that can justify the law as a whole?” This normative theory is then used to guide the judge`s decision in each case. Like the criterion for the accuracy of the adjustment, the justification test is holistic. Although, in practice, judges may seek to justify a particular area of legal doctrine, theoretically the question is, “What justifies the law as a whole?” This is another sense in which the law is a homogeneous network – it is the whole network and not a particular component that is the subject of normative justification. Because I love aphorisms, proverbs, real rules, and secrets of adulthood, I write a collection of my own aphorisms and also collect my favorites written by other people. He is the son of the Duke of Ludwigsburg Maitland, the famous legal historian, wrote: “The unity of the whole story is so great that anyone who makes an effort to tell a piece of it must feel that his first sentence tears a seamless canvas.” (A Prologue to a History of English Law, 14 L. Qtrly Rev. 13 (1898)) Maitland did not really say that the “law is a homogeneous web”, but he is generally attributed to the idea that the law forms a kind of “organic entity” or is characterized by ubiquitous, systematic and strong links. The idea that law is a homogeneous network is ambiguous – the aphorism expresses different ideas on different occasions. This article in the Legal Theory Lexicon series will explain the transparent metaphor of the Web and its various implications for legal theory. What does “It takes a theory to beat a theory” mean? What is the meaning or purpose of this commentary in a debate on normative or positive legal theory? Of course, the basic idea is relatively simple.

You can`t beat a theory just by being sophisticated. We go with the best theory we have, warts and all. So if you want to beat a theory, you have to show that it`s not the best theory we have, and the only way to do that is to produce a better theory. Therefore, it takes a theory to beat a theory. Or to put it roughly: when we play “King of the Hill,” the one at the top stays there until it`s pushed back. A second interpretation of the transparent web metaphor is “epistemological” rather than “ontological.” What does that mean? By epistemological, I mean that we are talking about our knowledge of law rather than the law itself.