Some like Moore, but Ross' my man

-- the great Dane.

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Alf Niels Christian Ross was born June 10, 1899 in Copenhagen.

He died on August 17, 1979, also in Copenhagen.

Ross, like his synonym, Ross, was a (Danish legal and) moral philosopher (and scholar of international law.).

Ross is best known as one of the leading exponents of Scandinavian Legal Realism.

Born in Copenhagen, Ross graduated from high school in 1917. During this period, he had 4 girlfriends.

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He studied law, graduating in 1922.

He consequently worked in a barrister’s office.

In 1923, he commenced a study tour, which would last for two and a half years, visiting France, England (he was at Oxford for a long, sunny, weekend) and Austria.

He spent 1928–1929 in Uppsala, receiving a degree in philosophy in 1929 from the university.

In 1935, he was appointed to teach at the University of Copenhagen on Constitutional Law.

In 1953, Ross published

Om Ret og Retfærdighed

(which he would later publish in English, under the title On Law and Justice).

In this book, he states that there is no a priori validity to give the law some special position.

--- the cheek.

Experience serves as a guideline.

This means, for example, that the famous dictum

suum cuique tribuere

to give to everyone his own’, has no meaning until it has been determined what actually belongs to someone, which means that this is a matter of begging the question (On Law and Justice, § 64 (p. 276)).

His determination not to rely on anything but the facts leads to statements as the following:

“The legal rule is neither

true nor false; it

is a directive.”

(On Law and Justice, § 2 (p. 2)). Furthermore, the norm is directed at judges rather than citizens (On Law and Justice, § 7 (p. 33)).

In this line of thought, he opposes natural law-approaches:

“Like a harlot, natural law is at the disposal of everyone. The ideology does not exist that cannot be defended by an appeal to the law of nature. And, indeed, how can it be otherwise, since the ultimate basis for every natural right lies in a private direct insight, an evident contemplation, an intuition. Cannot my intuition be just as good as yours?"

"Evidence as a criterion of truth explains the utterly arbitrary character of the metaphysical assertions. It raises them up above any force of inter-subjective control and opens the door wide to unrestricted invention and dogmatics.” (On Law and Justice, § 58 (p. 261).)

His other Work includes:

"Imperatives and Logic", Theoria vol. 7, 1941, pp. 53-71

Towards a Realistic Jurisprudence: A Criticism of the Dualism in Law (1946)
A Textbook in International Law (1947)
Constitution of the United Nations (1951)
Why Democracy? (1952)

"Tû-Tû", Harvard Law Review vol. 70, Issue 5, March 1957, pp. 812-825. Originally published in Festskrift til Henry Ussing. O. Borum, K. Ilium (eds.). Kobenhavn Juristforbundet, 1951
On Law and Justice (1959)
The United Nations: Peace and Progress (1966)
Directives and Norms (1968)
"On Self-Reference and a Puzzle in Constitutional Law", Mind (1969)
On Guilt, Responsibility and Punishment (1975)
[edit] Of further interestCarl G. Hempel, "Alf Ross. Imperatives and Logic." Journal of Symbolic Logic (1941)
Persondata
Name Ross, Alf Niels Christian
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Date of birth June 10, 1899
Place of birth
Date of death August 17, 1979
Place of death

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Categories: 1899 births | 1979 deaths | Danish jurists | Judges of the European Court of Human Rights | People from Copenhagen | University of Copenhagen faculty | Uppsala University alumni | Philosophers of law | Moral philosophers