A Law of One's Own: Self‐Legislation and Radical Kantian Constructivism

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Radical constructivists appeal to self‐legislation in arguing that rational agents are the ultimate sources of normative authority over themselves. <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">I</jats:styled-content> chart the roots of radical constructivism and argue that its two leading <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">K</jats:styled-content>antian proponents are unable to defend an account of self‐legislation as the fundamental source of practical normativity without this legislation collapsing into a fatal arbitrariness. <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">C</jats:styled-content>hristine <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">K</jats:styled-content>orsgaard cannot adequately justify the critical resources which agents use to navigate their practical identities. This leaves her account riven between rigorism and voluntarism, such that it will not escape a paradox that arises when self‐legislation is unable to appeal to external normative standards. Onora <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">O</jats:styled-content>'<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">N</jats:styled-content>eill anchors self‐legislation more firmly to the self‐disciplining structures of reason itself. However, she ultimately fails to defend sufficiently unconditional practical norms which could guide legislation. These endemic problems with radical constructivist models of self‐legislation prompt a reconstruction of a neglected realist self‐legislative tradition which is exemplified by <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">C</jats:styled-content>hristian <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">W</jats:styled-content>olff. In outlining a rationalist and realist account of self‐legislation, <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">I</jats:styled-content> argue that it can also make sense of our ability to overcome anomie and deference in practical action. Thus, <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">I</jats:styled-content> claim that we need not make laws but can make them our own.</jats:p>