I.
Here is a question at the heart of (many contemporary debates in) legal philosophy: Can judges take the internal point of view toward—accept—their legal system's rule of recognition for purely prudential reasons?Footnote 1 I want to take a fresh look at an underappreciated conceptual argument of Joseph Raz's that answers: no.Footnote 2 In a nutshell, Raz argues purely prudential reasons are reasons of the wrong kind for judges to accept their legal system's rule of recognition. And should Raz's argument succeed, an important necessary connection between law and morality would be established.
A.
The plan: First, I set out and reconstruct Raz's argument. Second, I grapple with Raz's argument: the aim is not to refute or rebut Raz but rather to draw attention to certain principles on which his argument implicitly rests. The hope is that such grappling will prove illuminating and reawaken interest in a rather neglected Razian argument: by foregrounding its enthymematic principles, we shall be better placed to determine the argument's strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, exploration of its enthymematic principles—principles concerning the closure, and what I call reverse closure, of agential motivation for accepting rules—will, I hope, prove to be of independent interest.
II. RAZ'S ARGUMENT
A.
Here is Raz's argument:
[R]ules telling other people what they ought to do can only be justified by their self-interest or by moral considerations. My self-interest cannot explain why they ought to do one thing or another except if one assumes that they have a moral duty to protect my interest, or that it is in their interest to do so. While a person's self-interest can justify saying that he ought to act in a certain way, it cannot justify a duty to act in any way except if one assumes that he has a moral reason to protect this interest of his. Therefore, it seems to follow that I cannot accept rules imposing duties on other people except, if I am sincere, for moral reasons. Judges who accept the rule of recognition accept a rule which requires them to accept other rules imposing obligations on other people. They, therefore, accept a rule that can only be accepted in good faith for moral reasons. They, therefore, either accept it for moral reasons or at least pretend to do so.Footnote 3
B.
I propose reconstructing Raz's argument as follows—where to accept a rule is to (be disposed to) regard it as a binding standard of public behaviorFootnote 4; and supposing judicial good faith (i.e., sincerity):Footnote 5
(1) Judges accept their legal system's rule of recognition.
(2) If judges accept a rule of recognition, those judges accept rules imposing obligations on other people.
(3) If one accepts rules imposing obligations on other people, some or all of one's reasons for doing so are moral.
(4) Therefore [from (1), (2), and (3)]: Judges accept rules imposing obligations on other people, and some or all of their reasons for doing so are moral.
(5) Therefore: Judges accept the rule of recognition, and some or all of their reasons for doing so are moral.
GRAPPLING WITH RAZ'S ARGUMENT
A.
Suppose premise (1) is a conceptual truth.Footnote 6 The weakest, interesting, conceptual principle licensing premise (2) appears to be:
Recognition Acceptance Closure: If judges accept a rule of recognition and that rule of recognition validates rules imposing obligations on other people, then those judges accept all (or most of) those rules imposing obligations on other people.Footnote 7
As an example, suppose the rule of recognition is: Whatever the Queen in Parliament enacts is law. The Queen in Parliament enacts a 60-mile-per-hour (mph) maximum speed limit on dual carriageways. By Recognition Acceptance Closure, if judges accept this rule of recognition, they (likely) accept the 60-mph speed-limit rule, and so on. And we might hope the above principle is subsumable under a more general principle. Perhaps the following (where ‘Φ’ and ‘Ψ’ range over rules):
Acceptance Closure: If one accepts Φ and Φ validates Ψ, then for every Ψ one accepts Ψ (or for most instantiations of Ψ one accepts Ψ).
As an example, suppose I accept and follow the rule: Whatever the guru Footnote 8 decrees is authoritative. On a broad construal, this rule validates the guru's edicts (rules). The guru tells me I ought to brush my teeth. By Acceptance Closure, I (likely) accept the tooth-brushing edict. Acceptance Closure licenses Recognition Acceptance Closure—the latter is (loosely speaking) an instance of the formerFootnote 9—which in turn, assuming that the rule of recognition in question validates rules imposing obligations on other people, licenses (2). And premise (3) is a putative conceptual truth (which derives from Raz's view on “the identity of meaning of ‘obligation’ in legal and moral contexts”).Footnote 10
B.
The step from [(1), (2), and (3)] to (4) is valid. I propose, then, arguendo, granting Raz (4).Footnote 11 What general and informative principle will take Raz to his conclusion, (5)? Consider, most generally:
Reverse Closure: If one accepts Ψ for reason-type R, and one accepts Φ, and Φ validates Ψ, then one accepts Φ for reason-type R.Footnote 12
But this principle forbids (does not permit) what I shall dub motivational additions: accepting Φ for reason-type R1 and accepting a rule it validates, Ψ, for reason-types R1 and R2. (Call the former rule a validating rule and the latter rule a validated rule.) As an example, again involving the guru, suppose, again, I accept and follow the rule: Whatever the guru decrees is authoritative. I accept this rule for either prudential or moral reasons (but not both). Again, on a broad construal, this rule validates the guru's edicts (rules). The guru tells me I ought to set up and take part in a sports camp, “The School of Hard-Knocks”, aimed at taking recidivists off the streets. I set up and take part in the camp for prudential and moral—mixed—reasons. And it would seem motivational additions are a general phenomenon. Validation (typically) broadens the horizons and (typically) takes one from an extensionally smaller set of rules to an extensionally larger set of rules.Footnote 13 Moreover, it need not be that a validating rule is directed toward the same set of persons as a rule it validates. Motivational additions are therefore to be expected. There is cause, then, to doubt Reverse Closure as a Razian route from (4) to (5) and to search for a principle permitting motivational additions.Footnote 14
C.
The foregoing suggests (though hardly conclusively establishes), somewhat metaphorically:
Penetration Principle: One's reasons for accepting a validating rule penetrate through the validation to become reasons for accepting the validated rule.Footnote 15
To see Penetration Principle in action we need only, its supporters might suggest, revisit the foregoing three examples, that is, the speed limit, tooth-brushing, and sports camp cases. I do not seek to—indeed, I doubt one can—prove Penetration Principle. Rather, let me highlight two likely putative counterexamples to Penetration Principle, involving judicial acceptance of a validating rule for purely prudential and purely moral reasons, by turn. Somewhat metaphorically, each putatively involves a case of a reason failing to penetrate through the validation (albeit being replaced by another reason-type).Footnote 16 Following each counterexample, I gesture at a likely reply that could be made by a supporter of Penetration Principle. Although in so doing I speak in the voice of such a supporter, I should not be taken to endorse either reply.
First, suppose that (pace Raz) judges accept a rule of recognition for purely prudential reasons of, say, self-preservation; such judges may well, according to this objector, accept a validated rule for purely moral reasons. But this objection, one might think, misfires: prudential reasons of self-preservation will penetrate through the validation to become reasons for accepting the validated rules. Accepting the validated rules is a (key) means by which such judges can effect their end of self-preservation: and the means inherit the end's reasons. This objector's case is, then, in fact a motivational addition, with judges accepting the validated rule for moral and prudential—mixed—reasons.Footnote 17
Second, suppose judges accept a rule of recognition for purely moral reasons; such judges may well, according to this objector, accept a validated rule for purely prudential reasons of, again, say, self-preservation.Footnote 18 More concretely, our objector may ask us—for dialectical reasons—to imagine these facts obtain with respect to our opening, purely pedigree-based, rule of recognition, namely: Whatever the Queen in Parliament enacts is law. And let us suppose that the Queen in Parliament enacts a law that the judges in question take to be thoroughly misguided. But again, this objection, one might think, misfires: moral reasons will penetrate through the validation to become reasons for accepting the validated rule. If judges do indeed accept this purely pedigree-based rule of recognition for purely moral reasons, it seems inevitable that such judges will accept any rule validated by this rule of recognition for (partly) moral reasons. To accept the rule that whatever the Queen in Parliament enacts is law for purely moral reasons is to accept whatever the Queen in Parliament indeed enacts for (partly) moral reasons. Think of it this way: By accepting this rule of recognition for these reasons, such judges are (with suitable provisos) effectively allowing the Queen in Parliament to make the call on the substantive content of the law. Their considered reflection down the line on the misguidedness of any particular law will not prevent moral reasons penetrating through the validation to the validated rule. This objector's case is, then, in fact a motivational addition, with judges accepting the validated rule for prudential and moral—mixed—reasons.Footnote 19
Overall, one might think, each putative counterexample to Penetration Principle overlooks, or underestimates, the conceptual connection effected by the process of validation between one's reasons for accepting a validating rule and one's reasons for accepting a validated rule.
The foregoing sketch of an inchoate debate over Penetration Principle can hardly be considered determinative—in particular, its supporters cannot be taken to have established it. And in the event of successful counterexamples to Penetration Principle, we may wish to explore suitably restricted versions thereof. Still, I propose, arguendo, accepting Penetration Principle as a concession to Raz. Penetration Principle serves, somewhat metaphorically, to anchor reasons for acceptance in the direction of the validation Footnote 20 and thereby to rule out certain likely counterexamples to any move from (4) to (5). In sum, then, and in light of Penetration Principle, any plausible fully general principle licensing a move from (4) to (5), thus, will permit motivational additions and will forbid (or operate in tandem with an auxiliary principle to forbid) what I shall dub motivational deductions: accepting Φ for reason-types R1 and R2 and accepting a rule it validates, Ψ, for reason-type R1.
D.
I want to explore two principles, though, reachable by restricting the scope of Reverse Closure. When such a scope-restriction is effected, a sharp (exhaustive and exclusive) dichotomy between what phenomenaFootnote 21 a principle (or rule) permits and what it forbids breaks down. I propose, when a scope-restriction has been effected, replacing this dichotomy with the following (exhaustive but nonexclusive) trichotomy: scope-permittedness, outside-scope-permittedness, and scope-forbiddenness.
Say a phenomenon is scope-permitted by a principle just in caseFootnote 22 the phenomenon is not forbidden by the principle within its scope. And say a phenomenon is outside-scope-permitted by a principle just in case the phenomenon is not forbidden by the principle outside its scope.Footnote 23 Finally, say a phenomenon is scope-forbidden by a principle just in case the phenomenon is not permitted by the principle within its scope.Footnote 24
So, for example, consider the rules of chess and in particular the rule for moving the king, that is, the king can move exactly one square horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The rule for moving the king scope-permits, for example, moving the king one square horizontally. And the rule for moving the king outside-scope-permits, for example, moving the queen in an “L” shape (notwithstanding that the rule for moving the queen scope-forbids this move) and also moving the queen two vacant squares diagonally (a move scope-permitted by the rule for moving the queen). Put vernacularly, the rule for moving the king does not speak to these phenomena—falling, as they do, outside its scope. Finally, the rule for moving the king scope-forbids, for example, moving the king two squares horizontally.
E.
With this said, I suggest, on the back of a certain reading of Raz's argument, the following principle, licensing a move from (4) to (5):
Single-Reason Reverse Closure: If one accepts Ψ for single reason-type R, and one accepts Φ, and Φ validates Ψ, then one accepts Φ for single reason-type R.
This principle, trivially, outside-scope-permits (though does not scope-permit)Footnote 25 motivational additions and scope-forbids motivational deductions. And this last principle also scope-forbids what I shall dub motivational shifts: accepting Φ for single reason-type R1 and accepting a rule it validates, Ψ, for single reason-type R2. But on our assumption of Penetration Principle, there is no reason to believe in such shifts.Footnote 26 Single-Reason Reverse Closure, though an improvement on Reverse Closure in these respects,Footnote 27 is unduly restrictive: it has no application to cases—left open by (4) and (5)—where judges accept the obligation-imposing rules and/or the rule of recognition for moral and prudential—mixed—reasons. And it is highly plausible that, in the hurly-burly of legal practice, cases involving mixed motivations will be commonplace. Single-Reason Reverse Closure thus will not do.
F.
So I restricted the scope of Reverse Closure by switching to Single-Reason Reverse Closure—a principle explicitly restricted to acceptance of rules for single reason-types. But there is an alternative, likely method of restriction of Reverse Closure open to Raz:
Obligation-Imposing Reverse Closure: If one accepts obligation-imposing Ψ for reason-type R, and one accepts Φ, and Φ validates Ψ, then one accepts Φ for reason-type R.
So this foregoes the generality of Reverse Closure, not—as does Single-Reason Reverse Closure—by restricting application to the number of reason-types for which one accepts a rule but rather by restricting application to a particular type of validated rule. This last principle scope-forbids both motivational additions and shifts but scope-permits (and, trivially, outside-scope-permits) motivational deductions. How problematic is this result with respect to motivational additions and deductions (the scope-forbiddenness of motivational shifts is, on our assumptions, straightforwardly welcome)? Taking motivational deductions first, while Obligation-Imposing Reverse Closure scope-permits motivational deductions, perhaps it simply needs to operate in tandem with an auxiliary principle forbidding motivational deductions—namely, Penetration Principle.Footnote 28 Finally, what about motivational additions? The key question here is: Granting that motivational additions are a general phenomenon, can they occur within the scope of obligation-imposing validated rules? In Raz's case, for example, judges can—we've established—accept the obligation-imposing rules for moral and prudential—mixed—reasons. But can they, consistently with that, accept the rule of recognition for a single reason-type? I see no reason why not (regardless of whether the rule of recognition is taken to be an obligation-imposing rule). Although in rejecting Single-Reason Reverse Closure, we had cause to think that cases of mixed motivations would be commonplace in the hurly-burly of legal practice, this is not to say that judicial acceptance of the rule of recognition for a single reason-type is ruled out. Obligation-Imposing Reverse Closure thus will not do either.
G.
It turns out, then, that neither of our two restricted reverse-closure principles will straightforwardly do the job in licensing a move from (4) to (5). They suffer from one or more of the following defects: resulting in the scope-forbiddenness of an intuitive phenomenon (motivational additions), being unduly restrictive, or, more generally, appearing ad hoc. Given this, and given that our unrestricted reverse-closure principle, taken alone, suffered from the twin defects of forbidding an intuitive phenomenon (motivational additions) and permitting an unintuitive phenomenon (motivational deductions), in the absence of alternative reverse closure principles, Raz's argument seems in difficulty.