Identification of Legal Content, Legal Nihilism and Propriety of Methods of Interpretation

Abstract

How do we ensure agents formulating legal statements are not systematically in error? In this paper I assume that the success of legal statements follows from the fact that propositions expressed by legal statements adequately represent legal reality. I argue that the content of legal statements hinges implicetly on the sources of law and methods in which we attribute meaning to these sources. In this regard, I identify the primary obstacle to the success of actions that consist of asserting legal statements as a systematic failure to refer to the proper method of interpretation by the agents formulating these statements. The paper explores several solutions to this challenge, focusing on the solution explaining the success in referring to the proper method of interpretation in virtue of meta-interpretive considerations. Subsequently, the paper discusses a challenge to this solution following from the claim that there are many different theories of meta-interpretation, and there is no fact (neither natural, nor conventional or intentional, anchored in the collective consciousness of society), determining that one of them is more accurate than the other ones. Given all the intricacies, this study focuses on exploring a coherent framework for understanding how different interpretive methods and meta-interpretative theories can be evaluated and applied in legal practice. It seeks to articulate a model that accommodates the diversity of interpretations while striving for a reasoned consensus on how legal texts should be understood and applied.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

  • Only published works are available at libraries.

Similar books and articles

Essays on Normativity and Describability of Law.Kevin Goonyoung Toh - 2003 - Dissertation, University of Michigan
Expressivism and the ex aequo et bono adjudication method.Izabela Skoczeń & Krzysztof Poslajko - 2022 - In Tomasz Gizbert-Studnick, Francesca Poggi & Izabela Skoczeń, Interpretivism and the Limits of Law. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 212-229.
Assessment sensitivity in legal discourse.Andrej Kristan & Massimiliano Vignolo - 2018 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):394-421.
Sources of legal indeterminacy.Quentin du Plessis - 2021 - South African Law Journal 138 (1):115-151.
Rechtswetenschap - disciplinair en interdisciplinair.B. Roermund - 2005 - Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy 1:81-109.

Analytics

Added to PP
2024-07-22

Downloads
252 (#108,844)

6 months
130 (#41,912)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Michał Wieczorkowski
Adam Mickiewicz University

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Ethics and Language.Charles Leslie Stevenson - 1944 - New York: Yale University Press.
Hard Choices.Ruth Chang - 2017 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 3 (1):1-21.
Epistemic modals and context: Experimental data.Joshua Knobe & Seth Yalcin - 2014 - Semantics and Pragmatics 7 (10):1-21.

View all 12 references / Add more references