Anders Vilhelm Lundstedt (11 September 1882 – 20 August 1955) was a Swedish jurist and legislator, particularly known as a proponent of

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and S ...

Legal Realism Legal realism is a naturalistic approach to law. It is the view that jurisprudence should emulate the methods of natural science, i.e., rely on empirical evidence. Hypotheses must be tested against observations of the world. Legal realists ...

, having been strongly influenced by his compatriot, the charismatic philosopher

Axel Hägerström Axel Anders Theodor Hägerström (6 September 1868, Vireda – 7 July 1939, Uppsala) was a Swedish philosopher. Born in Vireda, Jönköping County, Sweden, he was the son of a Church of Sweden pastor. As student at Uppsala University, he gave ...

. He studied law at

Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion University of Uppsala Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance during ...

from 1914 to 1947. Like Hägerström,

Karl Olivecrona Karl Olivecrona (25 October 1897, in Norrbärke – 1980) was a Swedish lawyer and legal philosopher. He studied law at Uppsala from 1915 to 1920 and was a pupil of Axel Hägerström, the spiritual father of Scandinavian legal realism. One of the ...

and

Alf Ross Alf Niels Christian Ross (10 June 1899 – 17 August 1979) was a Danish jurist, legal philosopher and judge of the European Court of Human Rights (1959–1971). He is best known as one of the leading figures of Scandinavian legal realism. His de ...

, he resists the exposition of rights as

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

entities, arguing that realistic legal analysis should dispense with them. Lundstedt's main focus in his theoretical work became a sustained attack on what he called the method of justice. He considered that there was no objective way to define the requirements of justice and that invocations of justice cloaked purely subjective preferences or unacceptable metaphysical claims. Instead, law and legislation should be guided by a method of social welfare centred on objective study of social conditions and of the practical effects and capabilities of law in improving society for all its members. Lundstedt was a member of the Swedish parliament for many years and promoted within it changes to the penal system and a range of other liberal reforms.

Works

*''Den historiska rättspositivismen: med särskild hänsyn till Bergbohms lära'' (Uppsala, 1929) *''Superstition or Rationality in Action for Peace'' (London, 1925) *''Die Unwissenschaftlichkeit der Rechtswissenschaft'' (Berlin, 1932 – 1936) *''Legal Thinking Revised. My Views on Law''

Bibliography

* Roger Cotterrell, 'Reading Juristic Theories In and Beyond Historical Context: The Case of Lundstedt's Swedish Legal Realism', in M. Del Mar and M. Lobban, eds, ''Law in Theory and History: New Essays on a Neglected Dialogue'', Hart, Oxford, 2016. * Wilhalm Fuchs, ''Die Zukunft der Rechtswissenschaft : Rechtswissenschaft als Gerechtigkeitswissenschaft : zugleich eine Auseinandersetzung mit Anders Vilhelm Lundstedt'', Stuttgart,

Kohlhammer Verlag W. Kohlhammer Verlag GmbH, or Kohlhammer Verlag, is a German publishing house headquartered in Stuttgart. History Kohlhammer Verlag was founded in Stuttgart on 30 April 1866 by . Kohlhammer had taken over the businesses of his late father-in-l ...

, 1933. * Realino Marra, ''Anders Vilhelm Lundstedt. per una scienza realistica del diritto penale, in I. Fanlo Cortés-R. Marra'', ed, ''Filosofia e realtà del diritto. Studi in onore di Silvana Castignone'', Giappichelli, Torino, 2008, pp. 89–100.

External links

Description of 11 letters from Lundstedt on http://andreas-lukas.de/resources/Nr1.+Lundstedt+Briefe.pdf 1882 births 1955 deaths 20th-century Swedish philosophers Swedish jurists Burials at Uppsala old cemetery {{Sweden-scientist-stub