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Photo of Håkan Hydén.

Håkan Hydén

Professor emeritus

Photo of Håkan Hydén.

The Concept of Norms in Sociology of Law

Author

  • Håkan Hydén
  • Måns Svensson

Editor

  • Håkan Hydén
  • Per Wickenberg

Summary, in English

The aim of this article is to propose a method for creating a more coherent concept of norms – and to deliver a tentative and open suggestion on how to define norms in a way that might fit into the context of Sociology of Law (further on shortened, SoL). The idea is that the norm concept can be chiselled out through ontological analysis, and that this analysis can be conducted in a way that allow every aspects of the norm concept to be scrutinized separately. The result will in the best case scenario be a kind of ‘open source’ construction where every individual research project can formulate its view of the common concept. The suggested ontological analysis is mainly founded on The Aristotelian concepts of ‘essence’ and ‘accident’. Thus the method is concerned with distinguishing between norm attributes that lie in their (the norms’) nature (collectively they form the definition) and other attributes (that are essential for the categorisation of norms).

Department/s

  • Department of Sociology of Law

Publishing year

2008

Language

English

Pages

129-146

Publication/Series

Contributions in Sociology of Law: remarks from a Swedish Horizon

Volume

Lund Studies in Sociology of Law; 29

Document type

Book chapter

Publisher

Sociology of Law, Lund University

Topic

  • Law and Society

Keywords

  • Norms
  • Sociology of Law

Status

Published

Research group

  • Cybernorms

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1403-7246