The use of vague language in law has important implications for legal theory. Legal philosophers have occasionally grappled with those implications, but they have not come to grips with the characteristic phenomenon of vagueness: the sorites paradox. I discuss the paradox, and claim that it poses problems for some legal theorists (David Lyons, Hans Kelsen, and, especially, Ronald Dworkin). I propose that a good account of vagueness will have three consequences for legal theory: (i) Theories that deny that vagueness in (...) formulations of the law leads to discretion in adjudication (including Dworkin's) cannot accommodate “higher-order” vagueness, (ii) A legal theory should accept that the law is partly indeterminate when it can be stated in vague language, (iii) However, the traditional formulation of the indeterminacy claim, that a vague statement is “neither true nor false” in a borderline case, is misconceived and should be abandoned. (shrink)

Jurisprudes today differ in their interpretations of H.L.A. Hart’s analysis of the semantics of internal legal statements. Drawing upon the philosophy of language and metaethics to reconstruct Hart’s view, they disagree as to whether Hart should be interpreted as an expressivist or quasi-expressivist. In this paper I propose a third reconstruction, under which Hart adopted an inferentialist analysis of the semantics of internal legal statements. In executing this reconstruction, I focus on Hart’s inaugural lecture, and utilize the theoretical apparatus of (...) Robert Brandom, a leading advocate of inferential role semantics, to bring Hart’s methodological pragmatist—and more specifically inferentialist—insight in that lecture to the fore. (shrink)

Legal positivism’s multi-faceted insistence on the separability of law and morality includes an insistence on the thoroughly conventional status of legal norms as legal norms. Yet the positivist affirmation of the conventionality of law may initially seem at odds with the mind-independence of the existence and contents and implications of legal norms. Mind-independence, a central aspect of legal objectivity, has been seen by some theorists as incompatible with the mind-dependence of conventions. Such a perception of incompatibility has led some anti-positivist (...) theorists to reject the notion of law’s conventionality, and has led some positivist theorists to query law’s mind-independence. What will be contended here is that both camps are mistaken. (shrink)

Understanding the contributions and the implications of law and emotion scholarship requires an acknowledgement of the different approaches within it. A significant part of law and emotion scholarship is focused on arguing for the relevance of emotion and on identifying emotion in legal processes and actors. Other parts of it venture further to ask how law can affect the expression and content of emotions themselves. This scholarship challenges legal positivist foundations, as well as some other established divisions in thinking, both (...) in law, and more generally in the history of ideas. The other important factor, which this article explores, is the methodology employed by law and emotion scholarship. (shrink)

The theory of rights is crucial as a means of relieving the tension between basic rights and democracy, and as a means of resolving the problem of allocating competence between the constitutional court and the legislature. To some theorists, no tension between basic rights and democracy exists, for the latter presupposes the former. To others, among whom I include myself, tension does exist, for basic rights, in lending protection to certain persons and groups, limit the possibilities of political decision. In (...) this connection it is important to take up the problem of the necessary conditions for realizing basic rights. One of these conditions concerns the delimiting of the scope of institutional action that is found, so to speak, in the space between the constitutional justices and the legislature, the latter as representative of the popular will. (shrink)

The paper aims at providing an argument for a deflationary treatment of the notion of public language meaning. The argument is based on the notion of standards of correctness; I will try to show that as correctness assessments are context-involving, the notion of public language meaning cannot be treated as an explanatory one. An elaboration of the argument, using the notion of ground is provided. Finally, I will consider some limitations of the reasoning presented.