Diritto, morale e realtà. Riflessioni a partire da Lo normativo di J.J. Moreso = Law, Ethics and Reality. Reflections from Lo normativo by J.J. Moreso

The essay critically investigates Moreso’s version of inclusive legal positivism, as it is articulated in the volume Lo Normativo. In particular, I will investigate Moreso’s thesis that the use of evaluative expressions does not result in an increase of judicial discretion, showing how it presupposes the existence and knowability of moral values. I will therefore examine the type of moral realism to which Moreso seems to adhere: the relaxed moral realism, in Parfit’s version. I will argue that this variant of moral realism (a) is not suitable for preventing the use of evaluative expressions from opening the way to decisional discretion and (b) is not a plausible version.