Abstract

Based on a non-cognitivist meta-ethical position and an anti-subjectivist concept of “reality”, Hägerström questioned the pretension of traditional legal theory, especially legal positivism, to be a science of law, because the entities to which it refers are not real. Olivecrona succeeded in pursuing such a thesis while he tempered it. Taking a socio-psychological approach, he offered a realistic theory of law which is able to emphasize psychical and linguistic phenomena lying at the root of our ideas of rights and duties, which determine what functions they serve in society and how they affect our conduct