The “naturalistic turn” that has swept so many areas of philosophy over the past three decades has also had an impact in the last decade in legal philosophy. Methodological naturalists (M-naturalists) view philosophy as continuous with empirical inquiry in the sciences. Some M-naturalists want to replace conceptual and justificatory theories with empirical and descriptive theories; they take their inspiration from more-or-less Quinean arguments against conceptual analysis and foundationalist programs. Other M-naturalists retain the normative and regulative ambitions of traditional philosophy, but (...) emphasize that it is an empirical question what normative advice is actually useable and effective for creatures like us. Some M-naturalists are also.. (shrink)

I distinguish between two ways of understanding the effect of a decision as a precedent in the common law, which I refer to as the individual rule approach and the holistic approach. I consider the different versions of the common law that they would be expected to give rise to, which approach is more closely reflected in the practices of the common law, and why the holistic approach is preferable as a method for finding and developing the law in adjudication. (...) I explain why under the holistic approach the common law contains principles as well as rules, and I consider the two approaches in the light of the requirement of the rule of law, and I show how the holistic approach explains a version of the policy/principle distinction. (shrink)

The nature of the relation between jurisprudential theories and first-order legal judgments is a strangely uncontroversial matter in contemporary legal philosophy. There is one dominant conception of the relation according to which jurisprudential theories are second-order or meta-legal theories that specify the ultimate grounds of first-order legal judgments. According to this conception, difficult first-order legal disputes are to be resolved by jurisprudential theorizing. According to an alternative conception that Ronald Dworkin has influentially advocated, jurisprudential theories are not second-order theories about (...) the nature of law, but instead covert first-order legal theories. These two conceptions of the relation between jurisprudential theories and first-order legal judgments dominate the contemporary legal philosophical scene and crowd out other possible conceptions. This article scrutinizes the two conceptions, and in the process raises the possibility of a different and arguably more credible conception. According to this new conception, our first-order legal views and a jurisprudential theory that we accept are supposed to form a mutually disciplining and supporting set of views that we accept in our pursuit of the epistemic ideal of wide reflective equilibrium. The two sets of views are supposed to constrain and discipline each other; but neither is meant to underwrite, certify, or ultimately determine the contents of the other. This new conception, which allows the relation between jurisprudential theories and first-order legal judgments to be much looser, untidier, and more complex than what the two dominant conceptions imply, should facilitate progress in legal philosophy and in first-order legal thinking. (shrink)

It will be argued, firstly, that there is a link between the legal validity of a norm and the rational justifiability of a requirement that judges should apply this norm, based on a normative conception of legal validity and the postulate that judges should act as rational persons; secondly, that rational justifiability of legal norms requires the construction of a legal system in a model of principles that differs from theories, e.g., of Kelsen, Hart, Dworkin and Alexy, which are not (...) fully adequate for a normative conception of law. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper, I discuss the different kinds of objectivity; general and legal objectivity more specifically. In the second part, I endeavour to explain the two main views that have been advanced to answer four core questions on legal objectivity. The first is whether moral and legal values are objective. Second, what is the nature of the relationship between legal and moral values? The third is whether, due to the specific nature of law, we should consider (...) a domainspecific conception of objectivity for legal values. The fourth concerns whether there is a correspondence between legal values and legal facts. What is the explanation of the platitudes about the nature of law such as that law is reasongiving, normative or authoritative in character? In other words, do legal facts have a place in our 'disenchanted' or naturalistic (in the scientific sense) understanding of the world. In the final section of this paper, I evaluate naturalism and nonnaturalism in law and consider the future of the debate and its relevance for understanding the connection between law, morality and legal normativity. (shrink)

A number of important legal theorists have recently argued for metaphysically realist approaches to legal determinacy grounded in particular semantic theories or theories of reference, in particular, views of meaning and reference based on the works of Putnam and Kripke. The basic position of these theorists is that questions of legal interpretation and legal determinacy should be approached through semantic meaning. However, the role of authority (in the form of lawmaker choice) in law in general, and democratic systems in particular, (...) require that these realist solutions to the problem of legal determinacy be rejected, or at least significantly revised. (shrink)

This essay presents a new theory of statutory application that is superior to two competitors. One of the competitors claims that statutory directives apply to act-tokens fitting the legislature's intention. The other holds that statutes apply to act-tokens that are of the genuine kinds named by the classifying words. These theories solve certain problems badly or not at all, respectively: (1) accounting for the capacity of statutes for epistemic guidance; and (2) avoiding literalism. Both do a limited job of accounting (...) for the rationality of statutory promulgation. The theory developed here, social salience theory, does better on all counts. According to social salience theory, the default position is that statutes apply to act-tokens that are socially salient, given the linguistic and social contexts. The departure from that position is also social, produced by conventions to defer to experts on the statute's applications to particular cases. (shrink)

In this book, I present the results of an investigation which began with an extended stay at Oxford's Balliol College during the first half of 1995. My visit to Oxford was made possible by a grant from the Spanish Ministerio de Educaci6n y Ciencia. My sincere thanks go to Joseph Raz who served as my supervisor in Oxford. For several points of the present study, conversations with Timothy Endicott in Oxford were also of great help. The book is part of (...) a larger project of investigation, directed by Albert Calsami glia, which is a joint effort of a group of legal philosophers from the Universitat Pom peu Fabra and the Universitat de Girona, and which also receives financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Educaci6n y Ciencia. An earlier version of the manuscript was presented in June 1996 to the selection committee for a tenured professorship in Legal Philosophy at the Universitat de Girona. The members of the committee were Francisco Laporta, Albert Calsamiglia, Gregorio Peces-Barba, Camilo J. Cela Conde, and Francesca Puigpelat. I am grateful to all of them for their comments, which have been extremely useful in preparing the final ver sion of this book. (shrink)

A provision’s legal meaning is thought by many to be a function of its literal meaning. To explain the appearance that lawyers are arguing over a provision’s legal meaning and not just over which outcome would be more prudent or morally preferable, some legal literalists claim that a provision’s literal meaning may be causally, rather than conventionally, determined. I argue, first, that the proposed explanation is inconsistent with common intuitions about legal meaning; second, that explaining legal disagreement as a function (...) of the causally determined meanings of moral terms requires, but lacks, a causal semantics which is clearly consistent with the scope of moral disagreement. Finally, I suggest that an element of the theory of language invoked by ‘causal’ legal literalists might be better deployed as part of an intentionalist account of legal practice. (shrink)

‘Free action’ is subject to the causal theory of reference and thus that The essential nature of free actions can be discovered only by empirical investigation, not by conceptual analysis. Heller ’s proposal, if true, would have significant philosophical implications. Consider the enduring issue we will call the Compatibility Issue : whether the thesis of determinism is logically compatible with the claim that.

This paper lies at the intersection of law and logic. Logical analysis is employed to attempt to make headway in what has proven to be an intractable interpretive debate over a defence provision of the Indian Penal Code.

Many still seem confident that the kind of semantic theory Putnam once proposed for natural kind terms is right. This paper seeks to show that this confidence is misplaced because the general idea underlying the theory is incoherent. Consequently, the theory must be rejected prior to any consideration of its epistemological, ontological or metaphysical acceptability. Part I sets the stage by showing that falsehoods, indeed absurdities, follow from the theory when one deliberately suspends certain devices Putnam built into it , (...) presumably in order to block such entailments. Part II then raises the decisive issue of at what cost these devices do the job they need to do. It argues that - apart from possessing no other motivation than their capacity to block the consequences derived in Part I - they only fulfil this blocking function if they render the theory unable to deal with fiction and related 'make-believe' activities. Part III indicates the affinity Putnam's account has with the classically 'denotative' view of meaning, and thus how its weaknesses may be seen as a variant of the classical weakness of 'denotative' approaches. It concludes that the theory is a conceptual muddle. (shrink)