Overview

How does law possess the normative force it requires to direct our actions? This book argues that this seemingly innocuous question is of central importance to the philosophy of law and, by extension, of the very concept of law itself. The book demonstrates that the normative force of law has a necessary connection to morality in two ways: Firstly, a commitment to the concept of moral truths is required; Secondly, these moral truths must be identifiable through human reason. The book argues that these conditions are met by Alan Gewirth's Principle of Generic Consistency, which locates the existence of universally applicable moral norms through a dialectically necessary argument grounded in the truism of noumenal agency. It demonstrates that a universalised instrumental reason necessarily serves as a categorical imperative to bind all agents to adhere to its absolute and exclusionary requirements against behaviour that would be non-compliant.