ABSTRACT
The symbolic rationality of law specifies what is good and bad and makes legality an
expression of the collective identity of a polity. The legal symbolic communication
of morality involves transcendental ideals which, as analysed in the first chapter, are
‘supra-temporal’ because they constitute the image of ideal origins of society and its
laws.1 From a moral point of view, these ideals operate as the ultimate sources of the
system of positive law which have the synthetic power to describe the general course
of history and the future of society.
