Nigel Simmonds Chapter Summary

Doctor Nigel Simmonds is the Dean of Corpus Christi College. He is a man with avid interest in the Philosophy of LawNigel Simmonds writes and lectures on philosophy of law. He has published several books and numerous articles in legal and philosophical journals. His books include 'A Debate Over Rights' (Oxford 1998), 'Central Issues in Jurisprudence', 4th edition, (London 2013) and 'Law as a Moral Idea' (Oxford 2007). Nigel Simmonds has sought to build on Lon Fuller’s claims that there is an intrinsic connection between rule by law and morality by arguing that: (1) a government that attempts to rule its subjects through law (rather than, for example, terror) will, of necessity, allow its subjects a degree of independence to decide for themselves

In the chapter on Fuller in the first edition of his book Central Issues in Jurisprudence. Justice, Law and Rights, Simmonds points out that if efficacy of social control refers to preventing instability of political regimes or ensuring that the governed comply with the rulers’ orders, then the principles of legality are not the instrument that best enables them to achieve that goal, but an obstacle to it. A dictator or tyrant wanting to crush political opposition can better achieve this objective by imposing a regime of widespread terror, where police act arbitrarily, based on ad hoc decisions, secret, retroactive directives, etc. When political power constrains itself to comply with the requirements of legality, the efficacy of its control is undermined, because where rules are general, public, and prospective, are congruently enforced, etc., the governed know how to act to prevent officials’ interference. In the absence of such limitations, any action that irritates leaders is likely to give rise to retaliation by the authority, and the only way to avoid such interference is to be submissive and compliant with what the one who holds the power wants. The constraints that the law imposes on the ruler’s conduct cast doubts on the purely instrumental character of legality and open the door

For Kramer,

if people often undergo punishment even when they have conformed closely to the prevailing legal norms or if they often do not undergo any punishment even when they have plainly violated those norms, the inducements for them to abide by those norms will be markedly sapped.

Simmonds responds to Kramer’s criticisms in the second edition of Central Issues in Jurisprudence and in some subsequent works, where he reaffirms, first, that evil rulers typically have reasons to deploy violence even against those. Who do not regularly disobey enacted rules and, therefore, there is no reason for rulers to wish to be bound by the principles of legality. Should rulers govern through public, precise, and consistently applied norms, they would give room for innovative or creative ways of political opposition and would facilitate its coordination, which would destabilize the regime and convey to the general population an image of the regime’s weakness. There is no reason to think that these rulers would cease to wish to resort to paramilitary forces or groups of thugs who informally exercise violence on those who, although acting within the framework of established rules, express disaffection or opposition to the regime through their actions. The informal exercise of violence generalizes fear among the population, thus, individuals lose any incentive to engage