ABSTRACT
Praxis theory seeks to conceive what justice is through contemplation of a highest good providing the rationally prescribed end that conduct and institutions must realize to be normatively valid. 1 This strategy has an immediate appeal, as would be expected of the seminal form of Western practical philosophy. If justice comprises justified action and justification must rest on reasons, rather than arbitrary opinions, valid conduct must ultimately lie in abiding by some highest norm whose own validity lies no where else but in its own given content. Little else seems feasible, for if the reason validating actions and institutions had authority through some further norm requiring similar justification, an infinite regress would result, leaving legitimation an insoluble problem. Accordingly, it would seem that justice is possible only if a highest good can be conceived that grounds itself, possessing validity solely in virtue of its own character. It would thereby provide an immediately valid standard, whose given content would have the exclusive privilege of mandating what is right and wrong, extending subordinate normative value to whatever other activities and ends contribute to its realization. To the extent that only reason can provide access to such a self-evident and universally valid norm, the highest good would provide the foundation of a system of practical norms prescribed by reason to which willing should conform. On this basis, right conduct would consist in rational willing, where the will obeys reason 10by restricting its own liberty in accord with the given norms comprising the rational order of the good life.
