La fisica come modello per il diritto?

di Laura Buffoni

SOMMARIO: 1. L’epistemologia “fisicalista” di Bin. - 2. Sulla corrispondenza tra teoria kelseniana delle fonti del diritto e approccio newtoniano. - 2.1 La pratica della gerarchia normativa come limite dei giudici al potere politico. - 3. Dalla meccanica quantistica alla teoria delle stringhe. - 3.1 Dell’ontologia degli oggetti sociali. - 4. I continentali ed il postpositivismo giuridico analitico: il diritto come modello per le scienze naturali. - 5. La teoria discorsiva dell’interpretazione giuridica, l’uditorio ed il mondo delle probabilità.

The article aims to discuss the theory presented by professor Roberto Bin in the book “A discrezione del giudice. Ordine e disordine. Una prospettiva quantistica” (Milano, Franco Angeli, 2013), according to which physical metaphors and intuitions can improve our comprehension of legal issues. In his book Professor Bin uses some paradigmatic shifts in physics (such as relativity theory and quantum physics) to illustrate the need of a revised constitutional theory. He argues, as Professor Lawrence Tribe firstly did in a famous essay of 1989, that scholars and lawyers can learn form modern physics, and, in particular, from quantum physics, to undermine the confidence of scientists in their ability to observe a phenomenon without altering it. Although agreeing with the heuristic ramification of the philosophy of science for legal studies and considering these metaphors as stimulating new studies, the Author argues that it is not correct to refer to natural sciences, such as physics, to leave the objective image of legal universe and particularly of constitutional issues. This is true, mainly because there is not an epistemological hierarchy between natural and social sciences. Even the scientific decisions borrow methodological options from the post-positivism science law – especially from the discursive theory of legal justification. In this perspective, at the opposite, natural sciences have to refer to legal doctrine.