Categorical Principles of Law

Categorical principles of law plead in favour of understanding modernity as a polyphonous project to be read on three levels. They formulate a theoretical programme in which ethics, legal theory and social philosophy form a connection. And it is precisely from this connection that new light is shed on modernity: In the field of legal theory, the categorical principles raise their voice against a merely empirical-pragmatic thinking; in the field of social theory they form a counterpoint to a theory of radical and exclusive plurality; and finally, they promote – albeit indirectly – a polyphonous self-understanding of modernity.

»Kantian theories of law and politics are not well understood in English-language philosophy, which has tended to ignore Kant’s actual writings on these topics in favor of his more foundational ethical works, from which philosophers often draw erroneous inferences about what the ›Kantian‹ view must be on issues of applied ethics and political philosophy. Höffe’s book is a much-needed presentation of a contemporary Kantian position by a leading German philosopher of law, containing a thoughtful critical response to the positions of Rawls and Habermas.« Allen Wood, Stanford University

»The book offers a highly interesting critical reinterpretation and defense of Kant’s doctrine of right.« Lars Vinx, Ethics