What Does Legal Normativity Mean?

Explaining what legal normativity means is an important task of legal theory.This issue involves two levels: the first level is the concept of legal normativity,that is,what sense of normativity the law has,mainly related to the distinction between legal normativity and moral normativity;The second level is the second order definition of legal normativity,that is,in what sense the law has normativity.The second order definition of the concept of legal normativity shows that the concept of legal normativity is a expediently constructed category from the perspective of the participants,which then needs to be placed in the legal application to obtain its own problematic orientation and interpretative task.Therefore,the participants’ legal application is the appropriate place to discover the concept of legal normativity,which is ultimately defined as the legal norm guiding action with its correct content in the participants’ legal application.Legal norms as justifiable directives guide how the subject should act.The concept of legal normativity accordingly contains two elements:guidance and justification.In terms of the specific sense of legal normativity,legal guidance means that it is between simple prescript and complete compulsion.Guidance and justification are inevitably related in the sense of taking legal norms as the result of directive illocutionary act.The unique guiding effect of law comes from the justification of law,which means that law gives the object strengthened authoritative reasons.In terms of the specific nature of legal normativity,legal normativity does not belong to a different type of social normativity from moral normativity,but has a moral character.The reasons given by legal norms do not follow the logic of exclusivity,but follow the logic of dialogue to communicate the substantive reasons behind them.The reasons given by legal norms create disjunctive duty for the object,who either chooses the guidance of the law or chooses to put forward substantive reasons that conflict with the authoritative reason and gives rise to substantive reasoning.The former is a primary option,where authoritative legal reasons,with their reinforcing force derived from formal sources,have priority over substantive reasons and do not give rise to substantive reasoning.The latter is a secondary option,where authoritative legal reasons do not have absolute priority over substantive reasons,but need to determine the priority in value balance.On this basis,legal normativity can be clearly distinguished from moral normativity: first,the guidance of action by law and morality is different.In terms of its ability to guide,legal guidance for action is weaker than the strongest moral guidance,which is the strongest in the final sense.Second,the justification of legal and moral guidance differs.On the one hand,moral reasons have moral force derived from their substantive content,while authoritative legal reasons have reinforcing force derived from their formal source.On the other hand,authoritative legal reasons maintain prima facie priority over substantive reasons by their formal sources.This priority exists only in the usual cases of legal application but is not final,and in the special cases of legal application it needs to be weighed against the substantive reasons to determine the priority.