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| Gregory Baus |
Dooyeweerd's Societal Sphere Sovereignty: A Theory of Differentiated Responsibility
by Gregory Baus (2005)
Introduction
Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) was a professor of law and jurisprudence at the Vrije Universtiteit, Amsterdam from 1926 to 1965. For the five years previous he was adjunct director at the Abraham Kuyper Foundation, the research and policy institute for the Anti-Revolutionary Party. Among his numerous legal writings, he is author of an Encyclopedia of Legal Science in five volumes, presently being translated into English. In addition to being a serious legal scholar, Dooyeweerd is also respected as a frst rate philosopher.
He addresses foundational philosophical issues -- ontology, epistemology, and philosophical anthropology -- and applies his insights to concerns of the particular sciences. Not surprisingly his focus of application is to the felds of law and society. One of Dooyeweerd’s signifcant philosophical contributions to theoretical refection on law and society is his development of Kuyper’s view of what is called societal “sphere sovereignty.”Kuyper’s conception is aimed at articulating an understanding of the multiple responsibilities within society. In a series of editorials developing this concept of societal sphere sovereignty, Dooyeweerd laments:
"…the profundity of Kuyper’s insight, with respect to the nature of the social order …was understood by relatively few people at the time or since."
In this essay we outline Dooyeweerd’s conception of societal sphere sovereignty as a framework for understanding differentiation of social responsibilities, and suggest some possible implications for social policies in terms of the responsibility of the state.
Read full essay HERE
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