Legal Justification Is Unrealizable: A Formal Theorem on the Bounds of Justification

This paper presents and proves a new metatheorem concerning the concept of “legal justification”—the Unrealizability of Legal Justification Theorem. Within a first-order logical framework, we introduce four primitive predicates: Just(x) (x is legally justified), Self (x) (x is self-justified), Other(x) (x is other justified), and Persp(x) (x depends on a particular perspective), along with four axioms that characterize their core properties. We rigorously derive that, under axioms A1–A4, ⊢ ∀x(¬Just(x)) : no object whatsoever can be legally justified. The theorem applies itself to the domain of discourse, proving that it too cannot be legally justified. This self-application does not lead to paradox, but instead reveals a consistent logical boundary. We discuss the theorem’s relation to G¨odel’s Incompleteness Theorems and Tarski’s Undefinability Theorem, clarifying their distinct metatheoretical status, and explore its formal significance for the classic philo sophical problem of Agrippa’s Trilemma, providing a new theoretical tool for the logic of justification.