Abstract

I define the “dark sideµ of law by contrast to its “light sideµ as it is framed by the “logicist-positivist paradigmµ based on the identity between normative text and norm. This identity has been considered implausible by legal philosophers over the last seventy years. Nevertheless, the paradigm continues to be handed down. According to Kuhn’s theory, this is because legal theory has been unable to develop an alternative paradigm. In fact, the logicist-positivist paradigm appears inextricably linked to the liberal-democratic one: a law-making judge denies the rule of the people through the legislature. To elaborate a new paradigm, able to recover, in the current context, the fundamental values of “democratic societiesµ, we should conceive law no longer as regulative of people’s behaviour, but of public power and see the judiciary as the body in charge of turning the personal troubles of marginalised and socially abandoned citizens into legal problems.