Doppiando il Capo Horn della scienza del diritto: Sull’oggettivismo post-metafisico quale fondamento del positivismo inclusivo

Inclusive legal positivism has been in the limelight for some time. There are several reasons for this. Among the structural reasons for this general change of direction within general jurisprudence are cultural changes such as the renewed interest for theory of action or normative methodology. This paper discusses José Juan Moreso’s contribution to this debate. The paper focuses especially on the thesis that there would be no connection between non-cognitivism as set out in meta-ethics and positivism in legal theory. This thesis is really the outcome of a compound of different positions: on the political level, the question concerns the possible relationships and tensions between democracy and liberalism. On the ethical and foremost meta-ethical level, the issue basically revolves around the relation between cognitivism and expressivism; and, on the level of legal theory, Moreso attempts to resolve the problem that Benedetto Croce, a century ago, compared to the difficulty of sailing around Cape Horn, i.e. to connect the law and ethics. The paper is divided into five sections. In the first section of the paper, a few historical remarks are made. In section two, I look at how natural law is defined in Moreso. In section three, some observations are made on how legal positivism is qualified in relation to natural law. In section four, I suggest a possible criticism of the conception of moral relativism used by Moreso and recommend an alternative conception that hopefully grasps further features of the way the problem is frequently discussed. Finally, some methodological remarks are made: the choice of disregarding the distinction between authentic and inauthentic normative propositions leads Moreso to conceive the object of dispute between cognitivists and expressivists in an unfruitful way. The lack of distinction between the role played by belief on the one hand and conative attitudes on the other makes it hard, if not impossible to grasp what exactly is the object of this dispute. In fact, their opposition, instead of representing a fertile scientific dialogue becomes similar to a situation where people are talking pass each other. If this outcome is to be avoided and the two positions reconstructed properly, an account of what constitutes belief should complement the theory. Probably greater focus is also needed on what is considered to be the primary function of normative propositions.