Il legame tra diritto e morale in J.J. Moreso: tesi dell’incorporazione e sfide metaetiche

The interplay between law and morality poses enduring challenges for legal philosophy, particularly when legal interpretation confronts ethically charged concepts. In such cases, a strictly formal reading of legal norms often proves insufficient. A nuanced theoretical framework suggests that legal provisions invoking moral language require a mode of interpretation anchored in ethical reasoning –without thereby collapsing the normative autonomy of law. This perspective, articulated in J. J. Moreso’s Lo normativo: Variedades y variaciones, is grounded in the Incorporation thesis, according to which the moral content of certain legal norms is not optional but integral to their proper application. Yet this incorporation remains contingent rather than necessary: law retains its distinct status while remaining open to ethical deliberation. Far from entailing moral absolutism, this model allows for a pluralistic and context-sensitive, though nonrelativistic,conception of morality, compatible with democratic public reason in a Rawlsian sense. Legal stability is safeguarded through institutional mechanisms like res iudicata, which coexist with interpretive openness.This contribution examines key aspects of Moreso’s proposal, tracing how the relation between law and morality emerges across varied normative dimensions, and how it invites broader metaethical reflections on the objectivity of moral judgment.