Law Beyond the State: A Reply to Liam Murphy

Liam Murphy’s article, ‘Law Beyond the State: Some Philosophical Questions’, presents the reader with a tour d’horizon through the possible worlds of a contemporary philosophy of international law seen through the lens of the notorious final Chapter 10 of H.L.A. Hart’s The Concept of Law. Murphy also confronts us with the actual debate on this topic, in which only little intellectual effort has been invested. For a continental European scholar, Murphy’s introductory distinction between the discipline’s ‘philosophy of international law’ and the blooming field of ‘international legal theory’ is not only feasible but also part of a wider problem. When ‘philosophy’ becomes a synonym for analytic philosophy, this disciplinary restriction will be compensated for by the development of ‘theory’ in other fields from comparative literature to law. However, a theory that is detached from philosophy runs the risk of losing its conceptual discipline and rigour. Likewise, a reduction of philosophy to analytic philosophy could be especially detrimental for areas in which contact with institutional realities is required, like the philosophy of law.