The article aims at refining the methodology of the legal science from Axel Honneth’s concept of freedom and Neil MacCormick’s institutionalist theory. According to the former, there is a need to establish for the methodology of the field a theoretical foundation articulating the demands of individual freedom and based on the necessary relationship between moral and ethics, simultaneously. One can find an approximation to this ideal through a re-evaluation of MacCormick’s concept of institutional normative order in the Honnethian theoretical reference. Stemming from the proposed association, it can be concluded that Law finds its foundational validity in the intersubjective process of normative reconstruction of the values inherent to the institutional order. The reconstruction of such socially shared values should be responsible for the preservation of the basic communicative conditions, which can make it possible for the individuals to mutually recognize their needs, beliefs, and skills.
Methodology; Legal science; Institutional normative order; Freedom; Recognition