The focus of this monograph lies in the construction of a theory of legal obligation, understanding it as a discrete notion with its own defining traits. In this work, Bertea specifically addresses the question: how should legal obligation be distinctively conceptualized? The conceptualization of legal obligation he defends in this work gradually emerges from a critical assessment of the theories of legal obligation that have been most influential in the contemporary legal-theoretical debate. Building on such critical analysis, Bertea's study purports (...) to offer a novel and unconventional conceptualization of legal obligation, which is characterized as a law-engendered intersubjective reason for carrying out certain courses of conduct. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the relationship between the principle of right and the principle of morals [Sitten] in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. My interpretation denies that the principle of right is derived from the categorical imperative, but neither does it adhere to the independence thesis. I present a third way of understanding the relationship between the law of right and the universal law of morals: the latter is needed in order to formulate the former, but it is not sufficient. (...) The principle of right is obtained by applying the categorical imperative to the concept of right. I highlight the discussion on the subject within the late eighteenth-century German natural law tradition and similar arguments found in Achenwall. (shrink)