Correction without "truth"? Parallels and differences between Robert Alexy and Sergio Cotta

Abstract

The work of Robert Alexy, and specifically his thesis that the law necessarily formulates a claim to correction, which is one of the main objections to legal positivism in our days, has generated a very intense debate in the philosophical panorama. Alexy’s reference to the pretension of correction leads to the requirement of substantiation of any normative approach. At this point it can be observed an obvious parallelism between Alexy’s thesis and Cotta’s position around the justification of the obligatory nature of the norms. However, although the positions of Alexy and Cotta are closer in their demand for argumentation as an essential requirement of law or, as Cotta put it, of the legal way of life, their approaches are very distant and mark two parallel paths in the recovery of the practical reason that has taken place throughout the second half of the 20th century. Alexy tries to separate the reasons that support the correction of any inquiry into the ontological structure of the human being, something that does not happen in Cotta’s approach. In this paper, it is argued that the theoretical construction of Cotta allows to elaborate a notion of justice or material correction that offers greater possibilities than Alexy’s in the practical field.