The Theory Of Legitimacy Basis Of Legal Responsibility

Neither “Moral responsibility theory” nor “Specification responsibility theory” can provide complete justification for legal responsibility. Because as a form of the responsibility with external force, it needs not only to meet the inevitability of legal responsibility, which can not only defend its legitimacy from the perspective of norms, but also to meet the necessity of legal responsibility, which still needs defending its legitimacy from the perspective of ought to be.Legal responsibility is a kind of the necessity of external rules, it is a passive and negative evaluated result of the person's behavior according to some certain standards. As a matter of fact, legal responsibility itself is a part of the rule of law, so the rule of law is its source of the inevitable legitimacy. As a kind of evaluation standards which are applicable to all people, the rule of law must be objective. The principle of objectivity comes from the highest legislative practice, namely “The external moral law”. The reason why the external moral law is objective and effective is that the moral law itself is obtained from pure practical reason. Kant confirmed the reality of reason through the objective and efficiency of knowledge; By pure practical reason, he obtained the effective moral law and the external objective moral law, legal liability therefore finds the source of legitimacy.On the other hand, the law does not force people to do what people cannot do. In other words, the reason “I should” is “I can”. So, the ought-to-be legitimacy of legal responsibility requires people have free will. Only when the man's will is free, he will be able to choose to be good or evil, to abide by the external moral law or to violate the external moral law. It is based on the cause of the freedom of choice that people should bear the corresponding legal responsibility for the behavior which does not accord the provisions of the law. Through the solution of the third “antinomy”, Kant demonstrates the possibility of freedom, by the “rational fact”, he then explains the factuality of freedom, through the condition from the “natural state” to “national state” transition, he finally illuminates the reality of freedom.Then, based on pure reason, the moral law and law of law gain objective and effective, which demonstrates the inevitability of legal responsibility; As to people's freedom, people have the ability to bear the corresponding negative consequences for the behavior based on the will freedom, which demonstrates the legal responsibility.However, legal responsibility just involves people's external behavior rather than one's mind. So while the free will is the premise and foundation of legal responsibility, we could not surpass the reasonable limits when we make judgment and imputation of people's behavior. This limit is, when we judge a person's behavior, the consideration of one's subjective mental state should only be confined to the limit that behavior and environment can show. In other words, the consideration of the actor's free will should only be limited by behavioral objective(curing) range.This limit is especially prominent in the criminal law. As the will kernel of the behavior, its effect on crime is restricted in the considerations of liability constitutive requirements, and the will factor consideration—the actor's subjective psychological—is limited to the scope of the investigation through the behavior and related environment in the process of behavior. Moreover, legal norms only regulate the external behavior, not focus on human's inner conception, therefore there should be a fixed order of “from the outside to the inside” in the logic of considering the behavior of the external appearance and internal will kernel. These changes are helpful for limiting the scope of the criminal law in our country, making the behavior punishment more cautious, the referee more rigorous. It is also beneficial for the unification of the legal application effect and consequences, promoting the establishment of the authority of law.