Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence
Truth In Law, Andrei Marmor
Truth In Law, Andrei Marmor
Andrei Marmor
In this essay I offer a speech act analysis of truth evaluable content of legal prescriptions. The argument is based on two main frameworks: one, drawn from an analogy with truth in fiction, explains the prefixed nature of legal statements, and the second explores the propositional content of legal prescriptions as a species of exhortative speech acts. Overall, the essay suggests an interpretation of legal prescriptions that allows for the validity of standard legal syllogisms.
Varieties Of Vagueness In The Law, Andrei Marmor
Varieties Of Vagueness In The Law, Andrei Marmor
Andrei Marmor
The main purpose of this essay is to articulate the different types of vagueness, and related linguistic indeterminacies, that we find in statutory language and to explain their different rationales. I argue that the various normative considerations involved in employing vague terms in legislation depend on the kind of vagueness in question. I show that while some cases of vagueness in law are concerned with fairly standard problems of borderline cases, other are not. I also argue that semantic vagueness can be distinguished from conversational vagueness, which we also find in law, and that vagueness in law should be clearly …
What Is The Right To Privacy?, Andrei Marmor
What Is The Right To Privacy?, Andrei Marmor
Andrei Marmor
A philosophical account of the right to privacy should explain what is the distinct interest that the right is there to protect, what it takes to secure it, and what would count as a violation of the right. In this paper I argue that the right to privacy is grounded on people’s interest in having a reasonable measure of control over ways in which they present themselves (and what is theirs) to others; I argue that in order to secure this kind of interest we need to have a reasonably secure and predictable environment about the flow of information. And …
The Dilemma Of Authority, Andrei Marmor
The Dilemma Of Authority, Andrei Marmor
Andrei Marmor
The normal way to establish that a person has authority over another requires a rule-governed institutional setting. To have authority is to have power, in the juridical sense of the term, and power can only be conferred by norms constituting it. Power conferring norms are essentially institutional, and the obligation to comply with a legitimate authority’s decree is, first and foremost, institutional in nature. Thus, the main argument presented in this essay is that an explanation of practical authorities is a two-stage affair: the special, practical import of an authority can only be explained on the background of an institutional …
Textualism In Context, Andrei Marmor
Textualism In Context, Andrei Marmor
Andrei Marmor
The main purpose of this essay is to show that the views about linguistic communication that make Textualism a plausible theory of what the law says, show why textualism is not nearly as helpful a theory of statutory interpretation as its proponents claim. The essay begins with a brief outline of what Textualism is, in light of its critique of Intentionalism and Purposivism; it then proceeds to explain the view of language, particularly asserted linguistic content, that is required to make sense of Textualism, and defends this view against a neo-Gricean critique; finally, the paper strives to show why those …
An Institutional Conception Of Authority, Andrei Marmor
An Institutional Conception Of Authority, Andrei Marmor
Andrei Marmor
The essay develops a conception of practical authorities that ties their legitimacy to the particular nature of the social practice or institution in which practical authorities invariably operate, and the terms of the subjects’ participation in that practice. The main argument of the paper draws on the distinction between what it takes to have practical authority and what would make it legitimate. The general idea is that what it takes to have practical authority is always determined by a social or institutional practice, and thus the legitimacy of any given authority crucially depends on the nature of the practice and …
How Law Is Like Chess, Andrei Marmor
How Law Is Like Chess, Andrei Marmor
Andrei Marmor
This is an essay on the conventional foundations of law. The paper consists of three main arguments: first, that between HLA Hart’s view on the rules of recognition and Kelsen’s view on the basic norm, Hart’s account is more plausible. Second, it argues that the rules of recognition are not coordination conventions, as some commentators have claimed, but conventions of a different kind. Finally, the paper draws a distinction between deep and surface conventions, arguing that there are deep conventions determining what law is, and surface conventions of recognition determining what counts as law in a particular community. This distinction …
Farewell To Conceptual Analysis (In Jurisprudence), Andrei Marmor
Farewell To Conceptual Analysis (In Jurisprudence), Andrei Marmor
Andrei Marmor
I have two main purposes in this essay: First, to show that conceptual analysis is not nearly as central to legal philosophy as typically assumed. The main methodological thrust of analytical jurisprudence, and in particular of legal positivism, is reductionism, not conceptual analysis. Consequently, the main objections to legal positivism are best seen as arguing against the possibility of reduction. Second, I aim to show that the interpretivist challenges to analytical jurisprudence bark up the wrong tree in this respect, and actually fail to engage with the methodological stance they aim to replace. Along the way I offer a partial …
Can The Law Imply More Than It Says? -- On Some Pragmatic Aspects Of Strategic Speech, Andrei Marmor
Can The Law Imply More Than It Says? -- On Some Pragmatic Aspects Of Strategic Speech, Andrei Marmor
Andrei Marmor
The content of the law is often determined by what legal authorities communicate. Both lawyers and philosophers of language know very well, however, that the full content of communication in a natural language often goes beyond the meaning of the words and sentences uttered by the speaker. Semantics and syntax are essential vehicles for conveying communicative content, but the content conveyed on particular occasions of speech is often pragmatically enriched by various factors. The standard model in the pragmatics literature, however, focuses on ordinary conversations, in which the parties are presumed to engage in a cooperative exchange of information. The …