The question of the grounds of authority has been one of the preoccupations of political thought in modernity. What is it that justifies Botero’s ‘founding, conserving and expanding of dominion’ if not an underlying cosmic, divine, or moral order?[1] The term that Foucault used for the attempt to produce or unearth such justifications was ‘political reason’ – encompassing not just reason of State in the stereotypical sense, but in the broader conception of justification of the act of governing as such.[2] Framed in this way, political reason could aptly be described as the essence of political modernity itself, understood as the attempt to ‘found, conserve and expand dominion’ in the absence of consensus on the existence or content of an underlying order.
It has been observed that law lies at the heart of this exercise ever since Machiavelli himself noted that a system of ‘good law’ would redound to the ‘glory’ of the Prince and thereby present his rule as beneficial and necessary.[3] But it has become much less common to do so explicitly in the course of the last century or so. This is despite the fact that one of the central concerns of modern jurisprudence has been how law can be made to better realise distributive justice or achieve social purposes or ends. This would appear to place law, at least in the mode of ‘political jurisprudence’,[4] at the heart of political reason in the Foucauldian sense, since it provides the State with what has been called an ‘authority-generating function’.[5] Law is the chief means through which the State acts, and also the way in which its relationship with society is given structure through a constitution. So if law is directed towards some social purpose or other, it can be understood to always also have the goal of justifying the very existence and composition of a particular governing framework or regime. Yet it is not generally conceptualised in this way.
The conference on Law and Political Reason will be convened in Spring 2026 in order to elucidate the role of law in modernity in precisely this sense: as a justification for the existence, preservation and growth of the practice of governing. Encompassing all aspects of law, public and private, and placing jurisprudence in dialogue with other disciplines, it will open an inquiry into the very nature of political modernity and law’s place in its foundations. A central interest is the question, if law participates in, reflects, and gives effect to political reason as it is described here, then to what extent does its composition give effect to what is necessary or normative, versus what is expedient?
More details to follow.
[1] G. Botero, The Reason of State [1589], in R. Bireley (ed.) Botero: The Reason of State (Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 4.
[2] M. Foucault, ‘“Omnes et Singulatim”: Toward a Critique of Political Reason’, in J. Faubion (ed.), R. Hurley (trans.), Power: Essential Works, Vol. 3, 298.
[3] N. Machiavelli, The Prince [1513], in P. Bondanella (ed.) The Prince (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 42-43; p. 83.
[4] S. Letwin, On the History of the Idea of Law (ed. N. Reynolds; Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 247-306; M. Loughlin, Political Jurisprudence (Oxford University Press, 2017).
[5] M. Loughlin, ibid., p. 1.