Private Law Theory

Johan van der Walt, The Concept of Liberal Democratic Law, London: Routledge, 2020, xiv + 267 pp, pb £27.99. A surprising claim: There are a number of straightforward ways to establish connections between modern law and liberalism; indeed, it is so facile that one is inclined to regard the requisite links as intrinsic. For example, one could simply follow the trajectory of substitutions that the tradition underwent with regard to what it took to be its major substantive concern. The original liberalism of private property, which is in different ways epitomised in the work of John Locke and Benjamin Constant , gave way to a liberalism that puts self‐realisation and freedom of expression at the center. We associate the names of Wilhelm von Humboldt and John Stuart Mill with this shift …

Alexander Somek, Liberalism and the Reason of Law, Modern Law Review, volume 84, issue 2, March 2021, pages 394-409, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12608.

First posted 2021-02-10 18:25:42