Law and Order

Every jurisprudence offers a distinctive image of order. Any order-whether of action, logic, or material-describes the ongoing operation of a set of principles or criteria. Principles define an order as the cause of an operation; criteria define it as the effect of other operations. The operation of a set of principles or criteria constituting an order allows observers effectively to distinguish that order from other orders or from no order at all. An order is static when it is possible for observers to describe operation of the set of principles or criteria constituting the order at a single moment, without reference to past or future. It is dynamic when observers cannot describe operation of the set at a single moment, but must refer to past or future to describe the operation completely. The jurisprudence in Jurgen Habermas\u27s Between Facts and Norms suggests an image of order-indeed, more than one. Habermas, like most legal theorists and all practicing legal systems, draws images of order from both static and dynamic jurisprudence. These two main classes of jurisprudence are distinguished by, among other characteristics, their static and dynamic images of order