Lerer on Law as Language: From Scandinavian Realism to Evolutionary Jurisprudence

Ignacio Adrian Lerer has published Law as Language: From Scandinavian Realism to Evolutionary Jurisprudence. Here is the abstract.

This paper traces the intellectual trajectory from early twentieth-century Scandinavian legal realism through contemporary analytical jurisprudence to propose an evolutionary theory of legal language. Building on the Scandinavian insight that legal concepts are linguistic phenomena rather than metaphysical entities, and extending the analytical tradition developed by Hart, Carrió, and the Alchourrón-Bulygin-Nino synthesis, I argue that legal systems exhibit evolutionary dynamics analogous to natural languages. Legal rules function as cultural replicators subject to variation, inheritance, and selection pressures operating through judicial interpretation, legislative modification, and administrative implementation. This framework provides theoretical foundation for understanding both the persistence of apparently dysfunctional legal institutions and the mechanisms through which legal systems adapt to changing environmental pressures. The paper concludes by proposing evolutionary jurisprudence as a research program that integrates insights from analytical philosophy of law with contemporary evolutionary approaches to cultural phenomena.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.