Discourse Ethics and the Legitimacy of Law

Abstract. The reconstructive theory of the procedural legitimacy of modern law developed on the basis of the theory of discourse ethics has limited itself solely to the deontological, moral-normative aspects of the validity claims of legal norms and judgments. However, teleological and axiological aspects are also intertwined with legal validity claims and with the procedures in which legal norms and judgments are produced. The discursive-procedural concept of legitimacy seems to require as its support, instead of the theory of discourse ethics, a general theory of practical discourses or, more generally, of rational collective will-formation.