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A foundation for the conception of law as practical reason

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journal contribution
posted on 2015-01-30, 15:57 authored by Stefano Bertea
This essay discusses a foundation of the connection argued to exist between law and practical reason that has proved to be highly influential and debated in contemporary legal philosophy - Alexy's. After reconstructing Alexy's conception of practical reason as well as its foundation, I criticise the weak transcendental-pragmatic argument Alexy uses to ground the authority of practical reason. This argument, I argue, can only show why occasionally, as opposed to necessarily, we ought to follow the guidance of practical reason, and consequently makes the authority of practical reason ultimately dependent on an individual decision. By building on this criticism, in the second part of the essay I introduce and discuss an alternative argument that, by appealing to the idea of constitutive necessity, can provide a non-contingent basis for the validity of practical reason. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

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Citation

Law and Philosophy, 2015, 34 (1), pp. 55-88

Author affiliation

/Organisation/COLLEGE OF ARTS, HUMANITIES AND LAW/School of Law

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Published in

Law and Philosophy

Publisher

Springer Verlag

issn

0167-5249

eissn

1573-0522

Copyright date

2013

Available date

2015-01-30

Publisher version

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10982-013-9198-x

Language

en

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