Czesław Martyniak’s Philosophy of Law in the Context of the Contemporary Debate About the Paradigm of the Non-Positivist Conception of Law

Abstract

In the contemporary philosophical-legal debate in Poland a growing interest in the nonpositivist conception of law may be noticed. It is a conception, which, contrary to the positivist conception, assumes, inter alia, the thesis about the necessity of the existence of a connection between law and morality.

The aim of the present article is to show how topical Czesław Martyniak’s philosophicallegal thought is in the context of the contemporary debate about the paradigm of the nonpositivist conception of law. It turns out that if we compare the theses advanced by contemporary followers of neo-positivism with Czesław Martyniak’s views of the essence of law, we can find several related points. First of all this concerns the thesis about the necessity of the existence of a connection between law and morality, but also the non-positivist thesis about the ontological complexity of law, the very definition of law, and the issue of its binding force.

In the final part of the article the author comes to the conclusion that although the contemporary debate about the concept and nature of law has reached a high level of sophistication, in fundamental questions it has not added anything new to what was said by Czesław Martyniak more than seventy years ago. However, today it is worth discussing the non-positivist conception of law, because such a discussion offers constructive criticism of legal positivism that is significant in practice. It tends towards improving the quality of positive law by taking into consideration also the demands of its validity and justice.