The paper argues that we miss the point and strength of Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law if we take it to drive a middle way between reductionism and moralism. Rather conversely, the Pure Theory is a radical theory. It tries to overcome the opposition between reductionism and moralism by making clear that both opponents rest on the same ill-conceived convictions about legal validity. Both take it that the law cannot be normative by itself. In contrast, the Pure Theory tries to find a new approach to the understanding of law that takes seriously the constitutive functions of law. It tries to understand the validity of law as resting in law itself. As such it is an attempt to find a philosophically satisfactory formulation of what can be called absolute positivism.

In Das Recht der Freiheit Axel Honneth develops his concept of social freedom. In this article I discuss Honneth’s project and critique one of its crucial aspects: Honneth’s views on the disruptive role of legal freedom in our society and its dependent relation to the sphere of social freedom. I argue that in his attempt in Das Recht der Freiheit to reactualize Hegel’s discourse on the realization of freedom for our time, Honneth risks mistranslating Hegel’s discourse of ‘right’ by denying the sphere of legal relations a constitutive role for true freedom, and that because of this Honneth’s own theory of social freedom suffers: it becomes less clear whether it can still offer helpful insights into the proper place of legal freedom in our society.

This article explores the themes of injustice and dehumanization in Aeschylus’ Oresteia and Yael Farber’s Molora, in which the story of the Oresteia is dramatized against the backdrop of post-apartheid South Africa. It is argued that both plays depict wrongdoers and victims alike as social outcasts. Thus, they can both be described with Paul Ricoeur as ‘sketches of a man,’ not being able to live up to their full human potential. Borrowing from Ricoeur’s legal philosophy, it is then explained how public trials and hearings help them to reintegrate into society, in which they can regain their full humanity.