Positivism

Positivism is the way of thinking that accepts only what the senses can capture: quantifiable facts. It is not interested in motives or ends, only in measurable results. Positivism extends to other fields the methods used in the so-called positive sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.). An example of a positivist statement: if I cannot see it, I do not believe it.

Positivism is a limitation on human thought, which encompasses ideas and approaches far broader than what can be measured. Man is much richer than mere verifiable facts.

Positivism rejects religion, certain branches of philosophy such as metaphysics, and in general everything spiritual.

What you are thinking right now cannot be measured; what you are feeling cannot be weighed; your will and your soul cannot be seen... For positivism, you have no feelings, no thoughts, no will, no soul.

By stripping man of the spiritual, positivism leads to skeptical, pessimistic, and logically materialistic attitudes.

Legal positivism is a theory of law that accepts as just only what the laws dictate, and solely by virtue of being laws. In this case, the tangible facts typical of positivism are the laws; everything else does not count.

Legal positivism faces several difficulties:

• The weakness of its foundations, which rest only on state coercion.
• The limitation of justice. As with all positivism, there is a reduction here too. Only those rights established by the legislator exist. (No talk of human rights, etc.)
• With these premises, legal injustices are reinforced. According to legal positivism, Hitler's and Stalin's murderous and genocidal laws would be perfectly just, since they are, in fact, laws.
• Laws and justice lose authority, since they depend on the legislator's whim, not on being reasonable.

Legal positivism is very widespread and this is why it sounds right, though what has been said about Hitler gives grounds for thinking that something is wrong.

Legal positivism lacks recognition of natural law. There are valid and just norms that have not been formulated by a legislator, but by human reason studying human nature. These laws embedded in the human way of being — natural law — demand reasonable conduct toward other human beings. Legal positivism takes no interest in human nature and what is reasonable; only what the state dictates counts.

In part one can say so. If a ruler thinks that only what he decrees is just, he may acquire a dictatorial mentality. On the other hand, if a ruler knows that his laws must be reasonable and in accord with human nature, he will be more prudent and just in his decisions. It is not man who must bow to the dictator in all things, but the ruler who must seek the true good of men.