The Kantian, Neo-Kantian, Hegelian and Historical School Regarding the Rule of Law
The Kantian, Neo-Kantian, Hegelian and Historical School Regarding the Rule of Law

Summary/Abstract: Immanuel Kant, after formulating the inaugural dissertation - "De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis" - of the philosophy course from 1770, is no longer tributary to others, he is no longer either a rationalist or an empiricist, but surpasses both, reaching the pinnacle of a synthetic concepts that are only his. He promotes a dualistic conception and believes that there is a phenomenal world and a purely intelligible (noumenal) world. The latter is unknowable to the human intellect, which can only know the phenomenon. In this world, man can rise through morality, whose key concept is the concept of freedom. To define the concept of law, Kant first makes the distinction between what belongs to morality and what belongs to law; the distinction between what relates to exteriority and what is an internal principle that can also extend to exteriority, but never the other way around. In these conditions, law only acts on the external acts of people, those of human interiority are carried by moral acts, which are superior to the previous ones. Freedom, as seen by Kant, is based on moral acts, even if law is based on reason, it cannot extend its scope to purely internal acts, as they remain outside legal regulations. For an action to be what is called legal, it is enough that it conforms to the law, whatever its motive; but in order for it to be moral, it must, apart from this, have as its motive the idea of duty that the law prescribes.

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