Hermeneutics and the Words of Law (Law as Communicative Action)

Abstract

Law notably finds its immediate “causality” in society. Due to its undeniable social nature and its exclusively human condition, it obviously, as a cultural element, emerges as a collection of ethical behaviour standards, and is, above all, a mechanism for dialogue to resolve conflicts. Through a complex and specialised legal-communicative language, Law connects the members of social communities and allows them, by such communicative and therefore hermeneutic action, to solve conflicts and, as far as possible, to avoid them in order to develop peaceful coexistence. This, and nothing else, is the virtue of Law, which should not allow anyone to impose their individual will on a collective by imposing “ways of life” dictated or decreed by the “powerful”: Law must not serve such a purpose; instead, it exists solely to facilitate fluid dialogue within the community.