Anders Vilhelm Lundstedt

Anders Vilhelm Lundstedt was a Swedish jurist and legislator, particularly known as a proponent of Scandinavian Legal Realism, having been strongly influenced by his compatriot, the charismatic philosopher Axel Hägerström. He studied law at Lund University and was a professor of law at the University of Uppsala from 1914 to 1947. Like Hägerström, Karl Olivecrona and Alf Ross, he resists the exposition of rights as metaphysical entities, arguing that realistic legal analysis should dispense with them. Lundstedt's main focus in his theoretical work became a sustained attack on what he called the method of justice. He considered that there was no objective way to define the requirements of justice and that invocations of justice cloaked purely subjective preferences or unacceptable metaphysical claims. Instead, law and legislation should be guided by a method of social welfare centred on objective study of social conditions and of the practical effects and capabilities of law in improving society for all its members. Lundstedt was a member of the Swedish parliament for many years and promoted within it changes to the penal system and a range of other liberal reforms.