Axel Hagerstrom
- Jurist
- Axel Hagerstrom
- School
- Scandinavian Realism (Uppsala School)
- Father of
- Scandinavian Legal Realism (Uppsala School)
- Theory
- Value-Nihilism (rights & duties as metaphysical illusions)
- Quote
Praeterea censeo metaphysicam esse delendam — moreover, I hold that metaphysics must be destroyed.
- Books
Inquiries into the Nature of Law and Morals (1953), Der Römische Obligationsbegriff
- Propounded
Value-nihilism; rights and duties as metaphysical illusions with no factual referent
- Definition of law
Founder of the Uppsala School / Scandinavian legal realism. Hagerstrom argued that law is not a system of objectively real rights and duties but a set of psychological facts — the sense of a binding legal bond is a 'magical' survival with no factual referent. His value-nihilism held that legal and moral statements are neither true nor false, but expressions of feeling. Contribution: he launched the empiricist attack on metaphysics in law, demanding that concepts be reduced to verifiable facts, and his work shaped the realist jurisprudence of Olivecrona, Lundstedt and Ross.
- Born
- 1868
- Died
- 1939
- Portrait
- /jurists/axel-hagerstrom.jpg