The Morality of Law and Lawmaking in Lon Fuller’s Procedural Natural Law Theory
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60131/jlaw.1.2026.11862Keywords:
Lon Fuller, Internal Morality of Law, Lawmaking, Special Morality, Culture, Common Sense.Abstract
The subject of the present paper is Lon Fuller’s procedural natural law theory, which defines law as the purposive enterprise of subjecting human conduct to the governance of rules. This definition rejects the strict dichotomy between fact and value: “is” and “ought”, description and evaluation, are interdependent categories that jointly constitute the definition of the concept. This methodological foundation underpins the concept of the internal morality of law, according to which the morality of a legal order is determined not by its substantive content, but by the procedural principles that bind the legislator and the law-applier to create and maintain a functioning system of norms. In turn, this process of normative ordering conceives of the legal subject as a rational, autonomous, and responsible agent.
Building upon this theoretical framework, the article examines the issue of special morality concomitant with the professional role of the legislator. It proposes a broad conception of lawmaking, suggesting that the formation of law is not confined to the activities of official institutions. Under this view, fundamental (pre-)legal meanings are shaped by social interaction and general cultural context, while the interpretation of legal material is grounded in common sense and shared standards of decency.
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