POSITIVISM AND JUSNATURALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF THE 20TH CENTURY

PHILOSOPHICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL IMPLICATIONS

Abstract

The complex relationship between jusnaturalism and positivism in the 20th century was seen from the perspective of the legal system in positivist interpretation as a problem of a normative nature, when in fact, and this is the main purpose of this article, it went much further, to the moral and evaluative problem and its reflection on the legitimacy of the legal system, mainly in the phase of evaluating the legal acts practiced under the aegis of the Nazi regime during World War II, both Lon Fuller and Gustav Radbruch showed the insufficiency of technical positivism and its impossibility of sustaining the minimum justice and morality inherent in law in any situation of normative application. On the other hand, Dworkin broadened the debate on legitimacy versus pure validity, criticizing Hart's position and his social morality as a criterion of legal legitimacy, advocating a moral-political reading of the Constitution as a legitimizing synthesis through the approximation of values and principles in the hermeneutic development of the Law.