From Raz’sNexusto Legal Normativity

Abstract

This is a Critical Notice ofFrom Normativity to Responsibility, Joseph Raz’s brilliant treatment of the nature of normativity and reasons. Building on the thought that the law claims to give reasons to its subjects, I consider the application of Raz’s views about reasons to some questions in legal philosophy. I concentrate on what I take to be the central idea of the book, Raz’s “normative/explanatorynexus”, according to which a consideration cannot be a (normative) reason for an agent to perform an action unless the agent could follow the consideration in performing the action. I show (briefly) how thenexuscan explain some of the Fullerian principles of legality. And I examine (at somewhat greater length) the implications of thenexusfor our understanding of the psychology of legal obligation; here I suggest that thenexusmight cause trouble for Raz’s own well-known exclusionary reasons account of legal obligation.