This paper consists of a journey marked by three important milestones: (i) an overview of the controversy between cognitivism and non-cognitivism, (ii) a review of the different theoretical positions around this controversy, and (iii) an assessment on the impact of such controversy in theory of law and in the way the work of the jurist is understood. The ultimate objective is to demonstrate that, if followed coherently, noncognitivism can only lead to the unintelligibility of the legal phenomenon. Jointly, and as corollary of the latter, it will be revealed that even highly convinced advocates of noncognitivism implicitly or unintentionally ground their legal theorization in cognitivisttype of assumptions. The author adds that a non-cognitivist judge has a serious risk of incurring in a certain type of professional hypocrisy that would consist in camouflaging the real reasons that led her to choose for the application of a norm instead of another, or to choose one method of interpretation over others, with empty formulas that have nothing to do with those real reasons.

As we will see, a non-cognitivist jurist approaches legal norms from a very different perspective than a cognitivist. Although it may sound shocking, justice has little or nothing to do with the work of the non-cognitivist from his perspective. This means that laws can have whatever moral content, that their reasonableness and/or their justice value is defined by the legislator, and that most of the time there are no strict reasons that justify what is that the legislator did when passing a law.

Bibliography

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32. Serna P, ‘Sobre las respuestas al positivismo jurídico’ (1997) 37 Persona y Derecho 296 (in Spanish).

33. Viola F, ‘Ragione pratica e diritto naturale’ (1993) 1 Ragion Pratica 63–4 (in Italian).