CALL FOR PAPERS: Folia Iuridica "LEGAL OBLIGATIONS AND LEGAL METHOD" vol. 116, 2026

2025-09-18

We therefore invite academics and practitioners to reflect on the philosophical foundations of legal norms and of their application in everyday legal practice.

This kind of interdisciplinary and international study of a basic legal concept is pioneering in the Spanish-speaking world, from which this call and project issues. This methodology follows in the footsteps of  other academic traditions. In the Anglo-American world, for example, reflection on the philosophical foundations of private law is well-known. In the German-speaking world, legal philosophers are typically also experts in a field of positive law. We believe that the rigid disciplinary divide among philosophical and doctrinal legal research that is still present in our legal culture ought to give way to a fruitful dialogue between the two. We hope that this special issue is a step in this direction.

A dialogue between philosophers and private lawyers on the concept of obligation is bound to illuminate problems raised in both disciplines.

From the perspective of legal philosophy, obligation is a crucial notion that is often linked, on the one hand, to obedience and legitimacy, and on the other hand, to different ways of understanding the relationship between validity, efficacy, and justice. The concept of obligation is also among the fundamental legal positions analysed by Hohfeld and widely regarded as one of the normative incidents to which legal regulation gives rise. There is no doubt that sound research in the philosophy of law will be sensitive to the ways the law’s operative concepts figure in legal reasoning and practice.

From the perspective of private law, obligations give legal shape to strong philosophical commitments, as they organise private law relationships around binding links between those who participate in legal practices. A prime example of this can be found in legal transactions and contracts, which in turn trade on particular conceptions of autonomy, consent, promise and corrective justice. The question why contracts are binding on the contracting parties arguably helps to unravel the basis of legal obligations, and to outline their scope and possible variations therein.

Both philosophical and doctrinal perspectives build on historical developments. These developments are revealing, although they are sometimes not brought to the fore. We invite authors to do so. The genesis of legal obligations has been a matter of paramount importance throughout the history of legal systems. The gradual emergence of a shared conceptual apparatus on obligation has coexisted with fragmented, piecemeal views of obligation tied to particular historical and cultural commitments. The tension between the abstract idea of legal obligation and its crystallization in different communities helps to being some main features of legal obligations to the fore. Hence also the need for dialogue that extends beyond geographic boundaries.

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