Do the Right Thing! : Robert Alexy and the Claim to Correctness

The claim to correctness is one of the main arguments adduced by Robert Alexy in defence of his inclusive non-positivism (Nichtpositivismus), that is, the thesis that there is a necessary connection between law and ideal morality. This essay aims to criticize that argument and, in particular, the thesis according to which every legal speech act that poses a norm necessarily claims correctness. Through both a critical reconstruction of Alexy’s argument, which detects the presence of some ambiguities in its key concepts, and a comparison with Moore’s Paradox and some of the explanations for this, we argue that that thesis is false, and that there can be non-defective (legal) norms that expressly do not lay down any claim to correctness.