This article develops an account of the nature and limits of the state’s legislative authority that closely attends to the challenge of harmonizing Kant’s ethical and juridical theories. It clarifies some key Kantian concepts and terms, then explains the way in which the state’s three interlocking authorities – legislative, executive, and judicial – are metaphysically distinct and mutually dependent. It describes the emergence of the Kantian state and identifies the preconditions of its authority. Then it offers a metaphysical model of the Kantian state and uses it to argue that the activity of juridical lawgiving is an act of the omnilateral will itself. Legislative authority is limited in the sense that it does not include the capacity to create juridical laws that are conceptually incompatible with the idea of universal external freedom. I argue that my proposed account of the legislative authority is wholly consistent with that authority’s exclusive lawgiving capacity and does not threaten the possibility of ‘distributive justice’ – the legal finality that is the sine qua non of a civil condition.

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立法机关

本文阐述了国家立法权力的性质和限制，密切关注协调康德的伦理和法律理论的挑战。它阐明了一些关键的康德概念和术语，然后解释了国家的三个相互关联的权力——立法、行政和司法——在形而上学上是不同的和相互依存的。它描述了康德国家的出现，并确定了其权威的先决条件。然后它提供了康德国家的形而上学模型，并用它来论证司法立法活动是全方面意志本身的行为。立法权威是有限的，因为它不包括制定在概念上与普遍外部自由理念不相容的法律的能力。