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The Legislative Authority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 November 2019

M. E. Newhouse
M. E. Newhouse*
Affiliation:
University of Surrey
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article develops an account of the nature and limits of the state’s legislative authority that closely attends to the challenge of harmonizing Kant’s ethical and juridical theories. It clarifies some key Kantian concepts and terms, then explains the way in which the state’s three interlocking authorities – legislative, executive, and judicial – are metaphysically distinct and mutually dependent. It describes the emergence of the Kantian state and identifies the preconditions of its authority. Then it offers a metaphysical model of the Kantian state and uses it to argue that the activity of juridical lawgiving is an act of the omnilateral will itself. Legislative authority is limited in the sense that it does not include the capacity to create juridical laws that are conceptually incompatible with the idea of universal external freedom. I argue that my proposed account of the legislative authority is wholly consistent with that authority’s exclusive lawgiving capacity and does not threaten the possibility of ‘distributive justice’ – the legal finality that is the sine qua non of a civil condition.

Keywords

KantMetaphysics of MoralsDoctrine of Rightstate authoritypositive lawlegal obligationjuridical dutiesrightful honourlegal finalitydistributive justice
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 24 , Special Issue 4: Special Issue on Kant & Law , December 2019 , pp. 531 - 553
Copyright
© Kantian Review, 2019 

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