Reconstructing Raz’s Rule of Law

Abstract I offer a systematic reading of Joseph Raz’s account of the rule of law. Contrary to the conventional reading, Raz does not hold that the rule of law is merely a virtue of efficiency, valuable only to the same extent as the ends it serves. Although the ‘sharpness of the knife’ analogy supports this neutral instrumentalist reading, it should be rejected. On my moral instrumentalist reading, the rule of law is valuable without equivocation. And since Raz agrees with Fuller that law must always exhibit the rule of law at least to some extent, his view is that law is necessarily morally valuable for its protection of autonomy and dignity. But Raz’s ‘formal’ conception does not arbitrarily neglect any aspect of this protection because its contours are shaped not by these values, but by the requirement that the rule of law constitute a distinctively legal value.