Law, Philosophy and the Susceptible Skins of Living Beings

Catherine the Great (apparently) wrote to the French philosopher Diderot something along the lines of: ‘You philosophers are fortunate. You write on paper, and paper is patient. Unfortunate emperor that I am, I write on the susceptible skins of living beings.’ Catherine expressed, I think, an important insight, that is true of the law as well: the law writes on the susceptible skins of living beings. This does not mean, of course, that we should not philosophise about the law, or that we should not take advantage of the benefits of having patient paper to write on. But as we do so, we should philosophise about the law all the time fully realising that the law itself does not write on patient paper, but on the susceptible skins of living beings. This has important implications to how we should—and how we should not—do philosophy of law. This article elaborates on these implications—both in general and using more specific examples.