Abstract

The question of why legal norms are authoritative is a time-honored and troublesome one. It is especially troublesome in the context of adjudication. That is to say, why are a judge's pronouncements authoritative? This question is the central inquiry of the dissertation. ;I begin by discussing the classical forms of the two jurisprudential theories that have competed for favor in the tradition--natural law theory and legal positivism. The pervasive themes of content-justification and factual provenience, associated with classical natural law theory and legal positivism respectively, receive special attention. ;Turning to modern theories, I contrast Hans Kelsen's normativism with reductionistic legal positivism . Then, focusing attention on adjudication and the judicial task of interpreting the law, I point to some difficulties in Kelsen's doctrine of normative alternatives. ;Taking notice of the fact that Kelsen steers a course between two extremes, namely, the brooding-omnipresence-in-the-sky species of natural law theory and the law-is-what-the-judge-says-it-is species of American legal realism, I suggest, taking our cues from Lon L. Fuller, that we can pick up where Kelsen leaves off. Fuller steers the same course. Moreover, like Kelsen, he holds that law-application is law-creation and that the law regulates its own creation. These points emerge in the penultimate chapter where it is shown that the centerpiece of Fuller's theory is the concept of role responsibility. ;In the final chapter, I discuss the fundamental issue of interpretation in the adjudicative process. In view of the difficulties in Kelsen's doctrine of normative alternatives, I argue that the authoritative status of judicial pronouncements turns on the integrity of the legal process of adjudication which, in turn, marks the fulfillment of the role responsibilities of the parties to the process. In short, the key is the commitment to the internal principles of the legal process of adjudication by the parties themselves