ABSTRACT

This article claims that private law theorists ought to bear in mind the distinction between wholesale questions about the best interpretation or justification of legal institutions, and retail questions about their internal operation – in other words, the distinction between questions about legal institutions and questions within them. This distinction has been obscured in part of recent private law theory, as recent discussions involving monism, pluralism, and private law adjudication show. The article explores these theoretical discussions and identifies some of their shortcomings. It also argues that, given the institutional character of private law, the distinction is plausible, and that – while it already underlies some contemporary discussions – it should be given much more salience, given the important contribution it could make to an adequate methodology in private law theory.

摘要

这篇文章声称私法理论家应该记住关于法律制度的最佳解释或正当性的批发问题与关于其内部运作的零售问题之间的区别——换言之，关于法律制度的问题与其内部问题之间的区别. 这种区别在最近的私法理论中被部分地掩盖了，正如最近涉及一元论、多元论和私法裁决的讨论所表明的那样。本文探讨了这些理论讨论并指出了它们的一些缺点。它还认为，鉴于私法的制度特征，这种区分是有道理的，而且——虽然它已经成为一些当代讨论的基础——它应该更加突出，