How is legitimacy made possible via legality?

Abstract

The author defends the thesis that the autonomization of the legal system cannot entail a complete dissociation of law from morality on the one hand, and politics on the other. Even law which has become positive does not sever its internal ties with morality and politics. The first section roughly outlines how modern law, with the help of rational law, has differentiated itself from the traditional complex of morality, law and politics. The middle section deals with the question of how an idea of the constitutional state emerges from the collapse of rational law, which does not have to merely stand impotent in relation to a society of high complexity and accelerated change. In the final section, the author examines how law and morality simultaneously complement and intertwine with each other today from an internal perspective.