Between Spider-Man and Spiders. On the ontological status of legal norms

Abstract

The work critically analyzes the paper titled “Conduct Norms as Deontic Artifacts” by Juan Pablo Mañalich, with its main objective being to show that Mañalich’s intended conclusion –that the expressive and hyletic conceptions are not jointly exhaustive–: (i) cannot be reached without first (i.a) clearly specifying the assumed relationship between the existing and the concepts we use to classify the existing, and (i.b) taking an explicit stance on the dilemma underlying the entire debate on the ontological status of legal norms; (ii) has already been –at least partially if not completely –argued for, and (iii) is arguable through avenues not considered in Mañalich’s work. The paper concludes that by overlooking all of this, Mañalich fails to adequately connect the pars destruens and the pars construens, which constitute his work.