page_title: Rudolf Stammler
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Rudolf Stammler / Work
caption_attribution_description: English: Spirituskreis 1902: Standing, left to right: Georg Wissowa, Eduard Meyer, Alois Riehl, Johannes Conrad, Carl Robert, Rudolf Stammler, Emil Kautzsch, Max Reischle. Sitting, left to right: Erich Haupt, Edgar Loening, Friedrich Loofs, Wilhelm Dittenberger. Pictures on the wall: Benno Erdmann, Richard Pischel. Picture an the chair: Hermann Schmidt. Deutsch: Spirituskreis 1902: Stehend von links nach rechts: Georg Wissowa, Eduard Meyer, Alois Riehl, Johannes Conrad, Carl Robert, Rudolf Stammler, Emil Kautzsch, Max Reischle. Sitzend von links nach rechts: Erich Haupt, Edgar Loening, Friedrich Loofs, Wilhelm Dittenberger. Bilder an der Wand: Benno Erdmann, Richard Pischel. Bild auf dem Stuhl: Hermann Schmidt.
context_page_description: Karl Eduard Julius Theodor Rudolf Stammler was an influential German philosopher of law. He distinguished the purely formal concept of law from the ideal, the realization of justice. He felt that rather than simply reacting and adjusting the law to economic pressures, the law should be deliberately steered towards the current ideal.
context_section_description: Stammler was impressed by the achievement of the great classical jurists in making the law an ars boni et aequi – a science of what is good and just.
  He wrote, "This, in my opinion, is the universal significance of the classical Roman jurists; this, their permanent worth. 
  They had the courage to raise their glance from the ordinary questions of the day to the whole. 
  And in reflecting on the narrow status of the particular case, they directed their thoughts to the guiding start of all law, namely the realization of justice in life."
  Stammler and his friend Paul Natorp of the Marburg School subscribed to Immanuel Kant's concept of progress towards a moral end.
  Stammler borrowed from Kant's metaphysical individualism to develop his theory of metaphysical-collectivism, or social idealism.
  He worked towards finding a critical method, modeled on Kant's philosophical approach, for determining what constituted justice.
  He tried to address the question of how judges should decide cases if their decisions are to be objectively just, as opposed to formally correct.
  Stammler argued that a law could be considered objectively valid to the extent that it enabled the objectively harmonious purposes of freedom, unity and order.
  Stammler and Natorp accepted the humanitarian and social goals of the socialists, but rejected economic determination, class struggle and metaphysical materialism.
  In his first major work, Wirtschaft und Recht (1896), Stammler opposed the Marxist view that the law was determined by economic forces.
  He questioned the Marxist ideal of a society with collective ownership of the means of production that ignored the critical role of law in ensuring social justice.
  He granted that economic forces were powerful, but asserted that the question of justice was independent.Roscoe Pound said the revival of juristic concern with natural law dates from the publication of Wirtschaft und Recht.
  This book laid the foundation for all of Stammler's subsequent writings.
  In Stammler's view the law should be seen as one of the regulating standards for the social economy, in which people cooperate to meet their needs through production and exchange of goods and services. It is wrong to think that law is made by arrangements to reduce economic pressure or conflicts, since the law is a fundamental to the existence of the economy.
  Stammler thought it was unrealistic to wait for the law to eventually adjust itself to changes in the structure of the economy, as the Marxists would assert. 
  The class struggle showed that the adjustments were not being made.
  If the law were constantly being adjusted to deal with new social stresses there would be no conflict.
  Although Stammler accepted the value of historical or analytical methods in jurisprudence, he thought that they were not enough. There must be some standard or ideal against which the law can be compared to determine if it meets its objectives.
  Pound credits Stammler with the concept that legal philosophy should not simply relate morals and ethics to abstract legal rules, since these might not give just results in practice. Stammler felt that the objective must be to achieve just results, defined as a social ideal.
  Stammler thought that ideal depended on the level of social harmony in any place, which would change over time. 
  The law should be adapted to conform to that ideal.
  Although the ideal would vary from one age to another, it remained subject to the absolute principles of respect and participation.
caption: Spirituskreis 1902: Standing, left to right: Georg Wissowa, Eduard Meyer, Alois Riehl, Johannes Conrad, Carl Robert, Rudolf Stammler, Emil Kautzsch, Max Reischle. Sitting, left to right: Erich Haupt, Edgar Loening, Friedrich Loofs, Wilhelm Dittenberger
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