Jens Gillessen, M.A.

The law is bound to guarantee what Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) called, in his "Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre" (1797), the 'right a priori' ("Recht a priori"): the sum of what to do is right and wrong, irrespective of time, place and circumstances, and can be known to be so. What is thus right and wrong can be expressed in valid normative statements which form a coherent whole of rules of right. By attempting to formulate these rules and to show why they hold, philosophy contributes directly to the enlightenment of juridical thinking, today as well as in Kant's time. In my dissertation project I explore the way in which Kant sought to establish some crucial norms of the 'right a priori', and whether the patterns of argument of which he availed himself thereto are valid.

The main hypothesis which guides my research states that the Categorical Imperative, in one of its 'universal law' versions, plays a crucial role in Kant’s foundation of these norms: "So act that the maxim of your will could at any time simultaneously hold as a principle of a universal lawgiving." This hypothesis is not entirely new and there are respectable reasons to reject it – reasons which I, consequently, engage on the textual and, above all, on the philosophical level. The two main problematic issues on which I hope to cast some light are:

• The priority and limits of the 'right a priori' with respect to the realm of morality proper, i.e. with respect to what Kant called the Doctrine of Virtue ("Tugendlehre").
• The constructive capacities of the many diverging variants of ethical generalization, i.e. of the idea that, in some version, figures into the Categorical Imperative and can vaguely be rendered by the well-known rule of thumb: 'What if everyone acted the way you do?'