The paper aims at a critical discussion of Alexy’s conception of the relationship between law and morality, which is known to insist on their necessary connection. After a brief recapitulation of this conception, the author scrutinizes three of its essential elements: the thesis of the dual nature of law, the argument from law’s claim to moral correctness, and the idea of an objective morality. Finally, he sketches his own position which, in some respects, resembles Alexy’s view, but also differs from (...) it in certain relevant points. (shrink)

The main thesis of this article is that Kant’s concept of law is a non-positivistic one, notwithstanding the fact that his legal philosophy includes very strong positivistic elements. My argument takes as its point of departure the distinction of three elements, around which the debate between positivism and non-positivism turns: first, authoritative issuance, second, social efficacy, and, third, moral correctness. All positivistic theories are confined to the first two elements. As soon as a necessary connection between these first two elements (...) and the third element, moral correctness, is established, the picture changes fundamentally. Positivism becomes non-positivism. There exist two kinds of connections between law and morality: classifying and qualifying connections. This distinction stems from different sorts of effects that moral defects give rise to. A classifying connection leads to the loss of legal validity, whereas a qualifying connection leads only to legal defectiveness. In Kant’s theory of law both connections are found. The qualifying connection is conspicuous throughout Kant’s theory of law, whereas the classifying connection, by contrast, is rare and well hidden. This will suffice to consider Kant as a representative of inclusive non-positivism. (shrink)

Legal anti-positivism is widely believed to be a general theory of law that generates far too many false negatives. If anti-positivism is true, certain rules bearing all the hallmarks of legality are not in fact legal. This impression, fostered by both positivists and anti-positivists, stems from an overly narrow conception of the kinds of moral facts that ground legal facts: roughly, facts about what is morally optimific—morally best or morally justified or morally obligatory given our social practices. A less restrictive (...) view of the kinds of moral properties that ground legality results in a form of anti-positivism that can accommodate any legal rule consistent with positivism, including the alleged counter-examples. This form of “inclusive” anti-positivism is not just invulnerable to extensional challenges from the positivist. It is the only account that withstands extensional objections, while incorporating, on purely conceptual grounds, a large part of the content of morality into law. (shrink)

Coherentists fail to distinguish between the individual revision of a conviction and the intersubjective revision of a rule. This paper fills this gap. A conviction is a norm that, according to an individual, ought to be ascribed to a provision. By contrast, a rule is a judicially ascribed norm that controls a case and is protected by the formal principles of competence, certainty, and equality. A revision of a rule is the invalidation or modification such a judicially ascribed norm, provided (...) that the judge meets the burden of argumentation of formal principles. Thus, judges can revise their convictions without changing the law. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAt first sight, the work of the German legal philosopher and constitutional theorist, Robert Alexy, appears to offer a welcome counter-example to the general insulation of Anglo-American ju...

Various authors have claimed that law has an ideal dimension owed to a claim to correctness. Against this thesis, this article argues that there are several ideal dimensions of law, namely, a moral, a legal, and an ontological one. All of them are independent of a claim to correctness. This claim can be understood in a strong and a weak way. Both versions are wanting because law claims neither that it is morally ideal nor that it is not grossly unjust. (...) Consequently, the ideal dimension of law has to be found in features other than in a claim to correctness. (shrink)

According to Robert Alexy’s dual‐nature thesis, “law necessarily comprises both a real or factual dimension and an ideal or critical one.” I will suggest, first, that various dualisms need to be distinguished, in particular the empirical and the normative, the real and the ideal, the formal (procedural) and the substantive; second, that the dualism of the empirical and the normative and, within the latter, of the real and the ideal “ought,” is not specific to law but pertains to any normative (...) system; and, third, that a dualism that distinguishes law from morality is a dualism of formal and substantive principles, which also serves to explain the authoritative character of law. (shrink)