An Alternative Path in the Philosophy of Law: a constructivist approach
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Abstract:
This paper reconstructs the foundation of legal philosophy by dismantling the
Kantian categorical imperative and redefining normativity through the concept of the
"constitutive hypothetical imperative." It first demonstrates that the categorical
imperative is an illusion rooted in reason's conflation of analysis and decision. Drawing
on Weber's typology of social action, it argues that value-rationality (Wertrationalität)
is the primordial motive of all action, and it redefines reason as the faculty of cognition
and the will as the autonomous faculty of decision, thereby dissolving the spurious
redundancy of the will in Kant's framework. The paper then locates the genesis of law
in the transcendental conditions of the intersubjective field: drawing on Fichte's insight
that the I posits itself only through opposition to a not-I, it argues that the self is
differentially constituted through the other and therefore necessarily wills to maintain
the integrity of that field. Law is consequently a constitutive hypothetical imperative:
"If you will to maintain the field of intersubjectivity, you ought to obey the law." This
imperative unfolds through the distinction between nomos—the transcendental, formal,
universal, and compound (negative and positive) minimal conditions for the field's
integrity—and lex—the positive, procedural, and institutional expression of nomos
within a given community. Finally, the paper distinguishes law from ordinary empirical
rules and critiques legal positivism, exemplified by Hart's union of primary and
secondary rules, for reducing law's normativity to social convention. Instead, it recasts
lex as a "meta-rule," whose binding force derives not from sanctions or convention, but
from the constitutive presupposition that makes selfhood possible. The normativity of
law is thus neither moral metaphysics nor mere coercion, but the self's pre-existing
practical commitment to the intersubjective conditions of its own differential
establishment.
Keywords: categorical imperative; constitutive hypothetical imperative; value
rationality; intersubjectivity; nomos and lex; legal positivism; Hart; Fichte; Kant; self
legislation
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另一种法哲学路径（Phil英译版）.pdf
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Dates
- Issued
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2026-06-04
References
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