Rejecting all knowledge claims concerning right and wrong in matters practical James Buchanan concurred with legal positivism that invalid law cannot be identified by its substantive content but only by an inherited defect in its factual creation. Beyond correct creation Buchanan proposed as a quasi-natural law constraint that unanimity in the shadow of individual veto power must at least be conceivable if a norm is to be law. The emerging hybrid conception of constitutional law is symptomatic for Buchanan’s never-ending but ultimately futile efforts to incorporate Kantian ideals of interpersonal respect into constitutional economics without imposing them as personal values.

拒绝所有与实用性问题有关的是非问题的知识主张，都同意法律实证主义，即无效法律不能通过其实质内容来识别，而只能通过其事实创造中的一个继承缺陷来识别。除了正确的创造之外，布坎南还提出了一种准自然法则的约束条件，即如果规范要成为法律，那么至少在个人否决权的阴影下的一致是必须可以想到的。新兴的宪政混合概念是布坎南永无止境但最终徒劳的努力的征兆，这些努力是将康德式的人际关系理想纳入宪政经济学，而不是将其强加为个人价值。