Fondazione della ragione pratica, diritto e teoria del discorso

Abstract

This essay is to be understood as primarily a discussion of Robert Alexy's treatment of practical reason and law. After a concise presentation of Alexy's theory of law and practical reason, I move to critically engage with Alexy’s foundation of practical reason shaped by a weak transcendental - pragmatic argument, which in its present form, I will claim , can only show why sometimes we ought to follow the guidance of practical reason, a nd which consequently makes the authority of practical reason ultimately dependent on individual decision. This in turn makes practical reason a contingent notion, and less attractive for it from a Kantian perspective . Yet we can avoid that outcome — and still preserve Alexy’s comprehensive conception of law as practical reason — by strengthening his foundational argument. This is something I intend to do in the second part of the paper, where , by building on the idea of constitutive necessity I put forward a transcendental foundation of practical reason, thereby resting Alexy’s conception of law as practical reason on a noncontingent basis. [Full paper is in Italian]