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On Apples and Oranges. Comment on Niels Petersen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Martin Borowski

Abstract

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Type
Part B: Technique, Doctrine and Internal Logic of Constitutional Reasoning
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 14 , Issue 8: Special Issue - Constitutional Reasoning , 01 August 2013 , pp. 1409 - 1418
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 Petersen, Niels, How to Compare the Length of Lines to the Weight of Stones. Balancing and the Resolution of Value Conflicts in Constitutional Law, 14 German L.J. 1387 (2013).Google Scholar

2 Petersen, , supra note 1, at 1394–1398.Google Scholar

3 Id., at 1398–1407.Google Scholar

4 See Sweet, Alec Stone & Matthews, Jud, Proportionality Balancing and Global Constitutionalism, 47 Colum. J. Transnat'l L. 73, 98–112 (2008) (discussing the German origins of the doctrine of proportionality); Moshe Cohen-Eliya & Iddo Porat, American Balancing and German Proportionality: The Historical Origins, 8 Int'l J. Const. L. 263, 271–76 (2010). The German origins of proportionality analysis are often acknowledged in European circles, too. See, e.g., Paul Craig & Gráinne de Búrca, EU Law: Text, Cases and Materials 526 (5th ed. 2011) (“The concept of proportionality is most fully developed within German law.”).Google Scholar

5 On the international proliferation of proportionality, see David M. Beatty, The Ultimate Rule of Law (2004); Aharon Barak, Proportionality: Constitutional Rights and Their Limitation (2012).Google Scholar

6 Petersen, , supra note 1, at 1388.Google Scholar

7 Bendix Autolite Corp. v. Midwestco Enter., Inc., 486 U.S. 888 (1988).Google Scholar

8 Id. at 897.Google Scholar

9 Id. at 893. To be sure, Scalia's quotation is taken from the context of the commerce clause.Google Scholar

10 Aleinikoff, T. Alexander, Constitutional Law in the Age of Balancing, 96 Yale L.J. 943, 973–74 (1987).Google Scholar

11 Petersen, , supra note 1.Google Scholar

12 Aleinikoff, , supra note 10, at 972.Google Scholar

13 Id. at 973.Google Scholar

14 Id. Google Scholar

15 Id. Google Scholar

16 Alexy, Robert, On Balancing and Subsumption. A Structural Comparison, 16 Ratio Juris 433, 442 (2003).Google Scholar

17 Id. Google Scholar

18 Id. Google Scholar

19 Alexy, Robert, A Theory of Constitutional Rights 402 (Julian Rivers trans., 2002).Google Scholar

20 Habermas, Jürgen, Between Facts and Norms 259 (William Rehg trans., 1996).Google Scholar

21 Alexy, , supra note 19, at 401.Google Scholar

22 See Borowski, Martin, Grundrechte als Prinzipien 122 (2d ed. 2007).Google Scholar

23 Alexy, , supra note 19, at 401.Google Scholar

24 Id. at 402.Google Scholar

25 Id. Google Scholar

26 Borowski, , supra note 22, at 123.Google Scholar

27 Id. Google Scholar

28 Aleinikoff, , supra note 10, at 972.Google Scholar

29 Aleinikoff's skepticism towards balancing is based on the use of this method by the U.S. Supreme Court rather than by problems of the method itself. See Aleinikoff, supra note 10, at 982 (“The problems that plague most balancing opinions, I believe, have severely damaged the credibility of the methodology.”).Google Scholar

30 On ordinal scales, see Wolfgang Stegmüller, 2 Probleme und Resultate der Wissenschaftstheorie und analytischen Philosophie 22–38 (1970).Google Scholar

31 See Borowski, , supra note 22, at 83.Google Scholar

32 Alexy, , supra note 19, at 97.Google Scholar

33 For a discussion on cardinal scales or ratio scales, see Stegmüller, supra note 30, at 44.Google Scholar

34 Alexy, , supra note 19, at 99.Google Scholar

35 See Alexy, , supra note 19, at 405–25; Alexy, supra note 16, at 443–49; Robert Alexy, The Weight Formula, in [3 Studies in the Philosophy of Law] Frontiers of Economic Analysis of Law 9 (Jerzy Stelmach, Bartosz Brozek, & Wojciech Zaluski eds., 2007) [hereinafter The Weight Formula].Google Scholar

36 Petersen, , supra note 1, at 1390.Google Scholar

37 Alexy, , supra note 19, at 99 (emphasis in the original).Google Scholar

38 See Alexy, , supra note 19, at 405; Alexy, supra note 16, at 440; Alexy, The Weight Formula, supra note 35, at 15.Google Scholar

39 See Borowski, , supra note 22, at 84.Google Scholar

40 This is to say that the substance of constitutional law rules out, by its nature, infinitesimal scaling. It is not, then, the case that infinitesimal scaling would be generally possible and that we have difficulty only in establishing more than rough distinctions. See Robert Alexy, Verfassungsrecht und einfaches Recht: Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit und Fachgerichtsbarkeit, 61 VVDStRL 7, 26 (2002).Google Scholar

41 Alexy, , The Weight Formula, supra note 35, at 19.Google Scholar

42 On the idea of a “double-triadic scale,” see Alexy, supra note 19, at 412–13; Alexy, The Weight Formula, supra note 35, at 22–23.Google Scholar

43 Alexy, , The Weight Formula, supra note 35, at 19.Google Scholar

44 Petersen, , supra note 1, at 1392.Google Scholar

45 Id., at 1389.Google Scholar

46 On the distinction between internal and external justification, see Jerzy Wróblewski, Legal Decision and Its Justification, in Le raisonnement juridique: Actes du Congrès mondial de philosophie du droit et de philosophie sociale 409, 411–12 (Hubert Hubien ed., 1971); Jerzy Wróblewski, Legal Syllogism and Rationality of Judicial Decision, 5 Rechtstheorie 33, 39–46 (1974); Robert Alexy, A Theory of Legal Argumentation: The Theory of Rational Discourse as Theory of Legal Justification 221–352 (Ruth Adler & Neil D. MacCormick trans., 1989); Aulis Aarnio, The Rational as the Reasonable: A Treatise on Legal justification 119–20 (1987).Google Scholar

47 See Alexy, , supra note 16, at 438–49.Google Scholar

48 Borowski, , supra note 22, at 121–22.Google Scholar

49 Petersen, , supra note 1, at 1403.Google Scholar

50 See Aleinikoff, , supra note 10, at 948.Google Scholar

51 Petersen, , supra note 1, at 1403.Google Scholar

52 Borowski, , supra note 22, at 121–22.Google Scholar

53 In cases in which there is no epistemic uncertainty with respect to empirical or normative premises, it is clear what the constitution requires, and consequently there can be no epistemic discretion. See Alexy, supra note 19, at 424; Robert Alexy, Comments and Responses, in Institutionalized Reason: The Jurisprudence of Robert Alexy 319, 331 (Matthias Klatt ed., 2012); Martin Borowski, Formelle Prinzipien und Gewichtsformel, in Prinzipientheorie und Theorie der Abwägung 151, 197 (Matthias Klatt ed., 2013).Google Scholar

54 See Borowski, , supra note 22, at 127–30; Martin Borowski, Die Bindung an Festsetzungen des Gesetzgebers in der grundrechtlichen Abwägung, in Grundrechte, Prinzipien und Argumentation 99, 111–21 (Laura Clérico & Jan-Reinard Sieckmann eds., 2009); Martin Borowski, Discourse, Principles, and the Problem of Law and Morality: Robert Alexy's Three Main Works, 2 Jurisprudence 575, 583–86 (2011); Borowski, supra note 53, at 154–99.Google Scholar

55 Borowski, , supra note 53, at 195–99.Google Scholar

56 Epistemic discretion is not to be confused with structural discretion; these species of discretion are different and both require, as a rule, consideration in the course of balancing. See Alexy, supra note 19, at 393–425 (commenting on structural discretion); Borowski, supra note 22, at 124–34.Google Scholar

57 See Petersen, , supra note 1, 1397–1398.Google Scholar

58 Id., at 1405–1407.Google Scholar