The Law In A “Liquid Society”

Justice means ranking different values to give priority to one another. The issue of the hierarchy of values brings with it a logical matter that every philosophy of law tries, explicitly or implicitly, to solve by assuming a fundamental value, to which all the other are subordinate. All these statements are verified and can be exemplified with the general stages of evolution of the philosophy of law, which have gradually proposed a hierarchy of values, with different accents in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, followed by their autonomy in modern times. The idea from which the present philosophical thinking has made its emblem is the pluralism of values, that is, their heterogeneity and heteronomy. The best formula is to streamline society under the influence of communication. At the same time, however, there is an opposite trend: the legal seems to impregnate all the social tissue and to impose its formalism and procedures. All social, economic, political, and even ethical interpersonal relationships or erotic intimacy increasingly become subject to legal norms and arbitrariness by law. Knowing that the great jurists felt the need to substantiate and complete the concept of law with certain philosophical positions, we wonder what the consequences of this contradictory situation are for the renewal of the interpretation of the law