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Can Gaius Really Be Compared To Darwin?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2008

Geoffrey Samuel
Geoffrey Samuel
Affiliation:
Professor of Law, Kent Law School; Professor associé, Paris II (Panthéon-Assas). This essay is based upon a paper presented to the Comparative Law section of the SPTL in Manchester in September 1998. Except where stated, translations by the author. The author would like to thank the many people who commented on earlier drafts of this article and to acknowledge the contributions made by the commentators.
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One might, by way of introduction, return to the general question. What is one to make of the debate between Professor Birks and the apparent schematic disorder of the common law? One immediate response is to consign this whole debate to a past age. Those who believe that meaningful legal reform can be achieved through classification risk being ridiculed.7 Such a view is understandable. The amount of intellectual energy spent on emancipating unjust enrichment from the categories of contract, tort and equity seems to bear little relation to the actual social benefits detectable in the restitution decisions themselves.8 And the experimentation with the public and private law dichotomy appears to have proved of little worth in the face of such social horrors as child abuse.9

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Type
Articles
Information
International & Comparative Law Quarterly , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , April 2000, pp. 297 - 329
Copyright
Copyright © British Institute of International and Comparative Law 2000

References

1. [1947] A.C 156.

2. Ibid., at 175.

3. Birks, P., “Equity in the Modern Law: An Exercise in Taxonomy” (1996) 26 U.W.A.L. Rev. 1, at p.4.Google Scholar

4. ProfessorQC, Peter Birks, Harassment and Hubris: The Right to an Equality of Respect (1996) p.39.Google Scholar

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6. On which see Stein, P., Legal Evolution: The Story of an Idea (1980).Google Scholar

7. “However powerful Birk's arguments, it is perfectly laughable to think that someone sitting in his study can produce a workable revision of the whole of the law of obligations”: Campbell, D., ‘Classification and the Crisis of the Common Law” (1999) 26 J.L.S. 369, at p.370.Google Scholar

8. One might legitimately ask if the decision of the majority in Dimskal Shipping Co. v. ITWF (The Evia Luck) [1992] 2 A.C 152Google Scholar, which seems to hold that exploited and low paid workers who resort to industrial action are unjustly enriching themselves at the expense of their employers, bears much relation with social reality.

9. It seems bizarre that the financial interests of local businessmen are protected against invasion by incompetent local authorities (Blackpool & Fylde Aero Club Ltd v. Blackpool BC [1990) 1 W.L.R. 1195)Google Scholar while the psychological and physical health interests of young children are not (X (Minors) v. Bedfordshire County Council [1995] 2 A.C 633).

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15. Legrand, Fragments, op. cit., supra n.14 p.64.

16. Foucault, op. cit., supra n.10 p.8

17. Foucault, op. cit., supra n.10 pp.7–8.

18. Foucault, op. cit., supra n.10, p.173.

19. Exercise in Taxonomy, op. cit., supra n.3 p.4.

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25. This paper does not set out to make a detailed enquiry into formal logic since commentators such as Zweigert, Kötz and Birks do not seem to be using terms like “deductive reasoning” and “logic” in the sense of formal calculus. In using these terms in such an unsophisticated way lawyers do, of course, leave themselves open to devastating criticism (see generally Susskind, R., Expert Systems in Law (1987), pp.164–169)Google Scholar. Yet at the more general level of taxonomy, structuralism or even legal style (Zweigert & Kötz, op. cit., supra. n.20 pp.63–73), it may be that there is confusion about the distinction between so called abstract (“logical”) reasoning and empirical thinking (“thinking in pictures”). One French epistemologist has made the point that “the concrete is the abstract rendered familiar through usage”: Blanché, R., La Science Actuelle et le Rationalisme (2nd edn., 1973), p.54.Google Scholar

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30. Largeault, op. cit., supra n.28 pp.110–115.

31. The point needs to be made that logic is not a means of discovery as such but simply a procedure; thus the so-called new information obtained through the process of logic is not actually new at all since it is contained within the major premise. Logic is thus a means not of discovery but of verification: Granger, G.-G., La Raison (10th edn., 1993), p.49.Google Scholar

32. See e.g. Robaye, R., Introduction à la Logique et à Argumentation (Erasme-Academia, 2nd edn., 1991).Google Scholar

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36. Wieacker, F., A History of Private Law in Europe (1995; trans. Weir, T.), pp.239–275.Google Scholar

37. Granger, La Raison, op. cit, supra n.31 p.46. But cf. Susskind, op. cit., supra n.25 p.192.

38. Harbour Assurance Ltd v. Kansa General International Insurance Co. Ltd [1993] Q.B. 701, 721

39. Piaget, J., L'épistémolgie Génétique (5th edn., 1996), p.103.Google Scholar

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41. Piaget, J., Le Structuralisme (11th edn., 1996), pp.5–16.Google Scholar

42. Oléron, Le Raisonnement, op. cit., supra n.33 pp.73–74.

43. For a general outline see Stein, , Roman Law in European History (1999), pp.107–110.Google Scholar

44. Oléron, Le Raisonnement, op. cit., supra, n.33 p.27.

45. Wieacker, op. cit., supra, n.36.

46. Blanché, R., L'axiomatique (6th edn., 1980), p.84.Google Scholar

47. These schemes are classified, analysed and discussed in Berthelot, J.-M., L'intelligence du Social (1990), pp.62–82Google Scholar. A translated summary, together with their relevance for legal reasoning, can be found in Samuel, G., Sourcebook on Obligations and Legal Ramedies (2nd edn., 1999), pp.169–177.Google Scholar

48. Granger, G.-G., La science et les Sciences (2nd edn., 1995), pp.87–92, 98–99.Google Scholar

49. Granger, G.-G., Essai d'une Philosophie du Style (Éditions Odile Jacob, 2nd edn., 1988), pp.276–277.Google Scholar

50. Sec e.g. Consumer Credit Act 1974, s.75(3)(b).

51. Bergel, op. cit., supra n.11 p.273.

52. Samuel, G., Foundations of Legal Reasoning (Maklu, 1994), pp.123–124, 175–178.Google Scholar

53. Bergel, op. cit., supra n.11 p.273.

54. Samuel, Foundations, op. cit., supra n.52 pp.191–240.

55. See G. Samuel, “Epistemology and Legal Institutions” [1991] International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 309; “Property Notions in the Law of Obligations” [1994] C.L.J. 524.Google Scholar

56. Piaget, Le Structuralisme, op. cit., supra n.41 p.104.

57. Joerges, C., “European Challenges to Private Law: On False Dichotomies, True Conflicts and the Need for a Constitutional Perspective” (1998) 18 L.S. 146.Google Scholar

58. See Samuel, Epistemology and Legal Institutions, op. cit., supra n.55. See also Samuel, G., “Are Property Rights So Simple in Europe?” in Jackson, Paul & Wilde, David (eds.). Property Law: Contemporary Issues and Debates pp.161–186.Google Scholar

59. See e.g. Manchester Airport Plc v. Dutton [1999] 3 W.L.R. 524.

60. However this does not exclude the application of art. 1382 to invasions of personality rights: for a brief historical view see Lefebvre-Teillard, A., Introduction Historique au Droit des Personnes et de la Famille (1996), pp.48–50.Google Scholar

61. See further on this point: Samuel, G., “Classification of Obligations and the Impact of Constructivist Epistemologies” (1997) 17 L.S. 448.Google Scholar

62. Astolfi, J.-P. & Develay, M., La Didactique des Sciences (4th edn., 1996), p.25.Google Scholar

63. Astolfi, J.-P. & Develay, M., La Didactique des Sciences (4th edn., 1996), p.25.Google Scholar

64. Atias, C., Épistémologie Juridique (1985), p.129.Google Scholar

65. With respect to the law of property and the Gaian scheme, see generally Patault, A.-M., Introduction Historique au Droit da Biens (1989).Google Scholar

66. See e.g. In re Campbell (A Bankrupt) [1997] Ch. 14.

67. See e.g. Spartan Steel & Alloys Ltd v. Martin & Co [1973] 1 Q.B. 27.

68. Susskind, op. cit., supra n.25 p.183.

69. Cf. D.6.1.9, 13.

70. Diplock LJ in Letang v. Cooper [1965] 1 Q.B. 232, 242.

71. See e.g. Manchester Airport Plc v. Dutton [1999] 3 W.L.R. 524. For an example of the reverie situation (in personam remedy based on a ius in re) see: Lipkin Gorman v. Karpnale Ltd [1991] 2 A.C. 548.

72. Birks, Harassment and Hubris, op. cit., supra n.4 p.39.

73. [1995] 2 A.C. 296.

74. Exercise in Taxonomy, op. cit., supra n.3 pp.5–6.

75. Ibid., p.6.

76. Ibid.

77. Harassment and Hubris, op. cit., supra n.4 p.39.

78. Birks, Definition and Division, op. cit., supra n.5 p.21.

79. Granger, La Science et les Sciences, op. cit., supra n.48 p.70.

80. As indeed do the natural sciences since it can be said that all conceptual schemes create their own categories and thus objects. But the issue is really one of balance between intellectus and res; and so while a butterfly can never be a bird, a will could be classed as a contract even if lawyers would probably never do this since it would start to destabilise the conceptual scheme. People have been classed as things (slaves) and things (a temple or idol) have been classed as persons. This might appear ridiculous or politically distasteful, but it does not destabilise the conceptual scheme.

81. Villa, V., La Science du Droit (Story/LGDJ, 1990; trans. O. Nerhot & P. Nerhot), p.84.Google Scholar

82. Atias, Épistémologie Juridique, op. cit., supra n.64 pp.31–36.

83. See e.g. Lazenby Garages Ltd v. Wright [1976] 1 W.L.R. 459.

84. See e.g. In re Campbell (A Bankrupt) [1997] Ch. 14.

85. [1966] Ch. 538.

86. van der Merwe, C. G. & de Waal, M. J., The Law of Things & Servitudes (Butterworths, Durban, 1993), no. 14.Google Scholar

87. See e.g. Libcharber, R., “L'usufruit des créances existe-t-il?” [1997] RTD civ. 615.Google Scholar

88. Van de Merwe & de Waal, op. cit., supra n.86 no. 14.

89. The various levels of legal science cause endless confusion when it comes to the history and theory of say property law. What is the object of a right of ownership or a right of possession: the physical object or the ius itself? This becomes completely meaningless once one talks of owning or possessing as a res incorporalis, for the object of the right is the right itself: see Zenati, F. & Revet, T., Les Biens (2nd edn., 1997), pp.58–63, 245–249, 273–275Google Scholar

90. Bunge., M.Épistémologie (Maloine, 1983; trans. Donadieu, H.), p.57.Google Scholar

91. Bunge, M.Épistémologie (Maloine, 1983; trans. Donadieu, H.), p.58.Google Scholar

92. Bunge, M.. Épistémologie (Maloine, 1983; trans. Donadieu, H.), p.58.Google Scholar

93. Bunge, M.. Épistémologie (Maloine, 1983; trans. Donadieu, H.), p.60.Google Scholar

94. Bergel, op. cit., supra n.11 p.273.

95. Ellul, J., Histoire des institutions: 3—Le Moyen Age (Presses Universitaires de France, 9th edn., 1982), p.27.Google Scholar

96. Bergel, op. cit., supra n.11 p.211.

97. Ex parte Island Records [1978] Ch. 122. Although this is not to claim that one cannot make a conceptual error in the sense that classifying some things as “property” might simply destabilise, or bend, the system.

98. Re Campbell (a bankrupt) [1997] Ch. 14.

99. D.50.16.16; Bumper Development Corporation v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner [1991] 1 W.L.R. 1362.

100. Anns v. Merton LBC [1978] A.C 728; cf. Murphy v. Brentwood DC [1991] 1 A.C. 398.

101. Esso Petroleum Co. Ltd v. Southport Corporation [1953] 3 W.L.R. 773; [1954] 2 Q.B. 182; [1956] A.C. 218. Q. Code civil art.1384.

102. Paris 14.12.1961; JCP.1962.II.12547; Cass.civ. 20.10.1964; DS.1965.62. Cf. Pharma ceutical Society of GB v. Boots [1953] 1 Q.B. 401.

103. [1932] A.C. 562.

104. [1964] A.C. 465.

105. Quoting Bcrgel, op. cit., supra n.ll p.273. Professor Bergel goes on to point out, of course, that the reduction of law to equations is a myth.

106. Guest, A. G., “Logic in the Law”, in Guest, A. G. (Ed.), Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence (1961), p.181.Google Scholar

107. Ibid., p.182.

108. Ibid., p.197.

109. Blanche, R., Le Raisonnement (1973), pp.250–251.Google Scholar

110. Although much depends upon the place in the category hierarchy. Thus at the level of a genetic category like reptiles, mammals and birds colour has no place as an element. But this is not to say that it can have no role in distinguishing between different species. In Professor Birks' example, the adding of yellow alongside the generic categories would make the system “bent” in as much as one would be making the fundamental category mistake of confusing genus with species. Such confusion does of course lead to logical fallacy: (1) cats eat meat; (2) cats are animals; (3) therefore animals eat meat.

111. Legal concepts cannot be definitively arranged hierarchically via genus and species since different concepts belong to different sub-systems. Thus “interest”, “damage”, “fault” and “proximity” are descriptive notions whereas “right” and “duty” are fully normative. One can try to construct chains of concepts: for example “interest” + “damage” + “fault” + “cause” might be said to give rise to a “right” to damages and a “duty” to pay compensation. Equally a contractual “right” and “duty” can be factored down to “interest” + “cause” + “promise (term)”. However to reduce the whole of public and private law to a single hierarchy of genus and species categories and concepts which never “intersect” would be an impossible task. Even the codes which separate personality “rights” (law of persons) from patrimonial rights (law of things) find that they get intermixed when it comes to damages claims for the invasion of a personality right. Such claims are often founded on the ordinary fault liability articles (for example Code civil, art.1382). Indeed even trying to keep separate real and personal rights is impossible according to some civilians (see e.g. S. Ginossar, Droit Rtcl, Propriitt el Crtance, LGDJ, 1960). In a system like English law where the thrust of claims is based on argumentation rather than “inference” from code “axioms” (a view itself now outdated even in most civilian jurisdictions thanks to the work of Chaim Perelman), the idea that all legal arguments would conform to a rigid hierarchical structure of concepts and categories is ludicrous. Argumentation itself is often based on the construction and deconstruction of the systems supporting categories and concepts. Take for example a notion such as the “public interest”: this can be used to support the strict liability of public bodies whose activities do damage (as in France via the êgality principle) or to exclude the strict liability of such bodies (as in England: see Dunne v. N.W. Gas Board [1964] 2 Q.B. 806). “Public interest” is thus a concept that can alter its quasi-normative potential depending upon the system within which it is operating. For the problems that a concept such as “good faith” might cause, see: Teubner, G., “Legal Irritants: Good Faith in British Law or How Unifying Law Ends Up in New Divergences” (1998) 61 M.L.R. 11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

112. Granger, La science a Us Sciences, op. cit., supra n.48 p.72.

113. Granger, op. cit., supra n.48 p.75.

114. Stein, P., Legal Institutions: The Development of Dispute Settlement (1984), p.127.Google Scholar

115. D.50.16.16.

116. G.2.14.

117. Well brought out in D.44.7.3pr.

118. G.4.4.

119. Stein, Legal Institutions, op. cit., supra n.114 p.130.

120. J.1.2.4.

121. Rudden, B., “Torticlei” (1991–1992) 6/7 Tulane Civil Law Forum 105.Google Scholar

122. Stein, Legal Institutions, op. cit., p.126.

123. Acot, P., L'histoire des Sciences (1999), pp.55–56.Google Scholar

124. Jolowicz, H. F., Roman Foundations of Modem Law (1957), p.61.Google Scholar

125. On which see Watson, A., “The Importance of ‘Nutshells’” (1994) 42 American Journal of Comparative Law 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

126. Legrand, Fragments, op. cit., supra n.14 p.64.

127. Blanché, R., L'induction Scientifique a la Lois Naturellcs (1975), p.152.Google Scholar

128. One might note on this point Lord Simon's vision of a mature and immature system of law. Knuller Ltd v. DPP [1973] A.C. 435, 492.

129. Best v. Samuel Fox & Co. Ltd [1952] A.C. 716.

130. Jarvis v. Swan's Tours [1973] Q.B. 233.

131. Birks, Exercise in Taxonomy, op. cit., supra n.3 p.6.

132. Ibid., p.4.

133. Ibid., p.15.

134. See generally Popper, K., Objective Knowledge (1973).Google Scholar

135. SirMaine, Henry, Dissertations on Early Law and Custom (John Murray, New edn., 1890), p.363Google Scholar. For a criticism of this kind of approach to law reform, see Campbell, Classification and the Crisis of the Common Law, op. cit.

136. See e.g. Definition and Division, op. at., supra n.5 pp. 33–34.

137. Ibid., p.34.

138. Ibid., p3O.

139. Samuel, G., “Classification of Obligations and the Impact of Construct vis t Episteraologjes” (1997) 17 L.S. 448.Google Scholar

140. Campbell, Classification and the Crisis of the Common Law, op. cit.

141. Granger, La Science et Les Sciences, op. cit., supra n.48 p.70.

142. Ibid., p.49.

143. Berthelot, J.-M., Les Vertus de l'Incertitude (1996), p.73.Google Scholar

144. D.22.6.2.

145. Ruxley Electronics Ltd v. Forsyth [1996] 1 A.C. 344.

146. Ibid., p.374 referring to Jarvis v. Swan's Tours [1973] Q.B. 233.

147. Ibid., p.373.

148. Kelley, D. R., The Human Measure: Social Thought in the Western Legal Tradition (1990), pp.12, 48–52.Google Scholar

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150. Bumper Development Corporation v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner [1991] 1 W.L.R. 1362.

151. Of course the point needs to be made again that certain classification assertions will contradict internal coherence of the scheme. For example if one classified as “contract” the following: sale of goods transactions, insurance transactions, hire-purchase transactions and cars. A car is obviously not a contract. But this is not because of factual reality itself; it is because the law of obligations classifies relations between people and the concept of a car cannot be used to construct a relationship. More interestingly would be the inclusion of wills rather than a car. Lawyers do not of course treat wills as contracts, but they could (just) conceivably do so. One of the points that Professor Aliyah makes is that contract is a very flexible notion capable of including all kinds of situations not currently seen as strictly contractual today: see generally Rise and Fall of Freedom of Contract (1979).

152. This point is developed in Samuel, G., “Comparative Law and Jurisprudence” (1998) 47 I.C.L.Q. 817.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

153. García, Manuel Carvo, Los Fundamenlos del Mttodo Juridico: Una Revisidn Critica (Tecnos, 1994), pp.167–246.Google Scholar

154. Berthelot, L'intelligence du social, op. cit., especially chap.2.

155. But see generally Samuel, Foundations, op. cit., supra n.52 and “Comparative Law and Jurisprudence” (1998) 47 I.C.L.Q. 817.CrossRefGoogle Scholar