OBJECTIVE INTENTIONALISM AND DISAGREEMENT

Legal Theory ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
David Tan
Keyword(s):  

Abstract Intentionalist theories of legal interpretation are often divided between objectivist and subjectivist variants. The former take an interpretation to be correct depending on what the reasonable/rational lawmaker intended or what the reasonable/rational audience thinks they intended. The latter take an interpretation to be correct where the interpretation is what the speaker actually intended. This paper argues that objectivism faces serious problems as it cannot deal with disagreement: reasonable and rational persons can often disagree as to what the interpretation of a text should be. It also defends subjectivism against criticisms by objectivists.

Author(s):  
Tyler Lohse

This essay comments on the nature of the language of the law and legal interpretation by exam- ining their effects on their recipients. Two forms of philosophy of law are examined, legal positiv- ism and teleological interpretive theory, which are then applied to their specific manifestations in literature and case law, both relating to antebellum slave law. In these cases, the slave sustains civil death under the law, permissible by means of these legal interpretive strategies.


Author(s):  
Любовь Евгеньевна Логунова

В статье автором проводится анализ законодательных памятников права Московского государства XV-XVI вв. и публично-правовых грамот. Выявляется проблема отсутствия законодательного закрепления таких понятий, как «коррупция», «коррупционное правонарушение». Предпринимается попытка определения данных понятий. Сравнивается понимание указанных явлений в XV-XVI вв. с современной правовой интерпретацией. Анализируются и раскрываются основные аспекты и особенности коррупционных правонарушений, характерные для периода Московского государства. Перечисляются меры противодействия коррупции на современном этапе и в рассматриваемом временном периоде. Изучаются не только такие известные памятники российского права, как судебники, но также и иные источники права периода XV-XVI вв. Перечисляются и раскрываются меры юридической ответственности за совершение коррупционных правонарушений. Дается краткая характеристика видам юридической ответственности, применяемым за совершение коррупционных правонарушений. Подчеркивается тяжесть уголовной ответственности, которую несли низшие судебные чиновники за совершение коррупционных правонарушений. Автор обращает внимание на то, что законодатель рассматриваемого периода придавал большое значение борьбе с чиновничьим произволом на местах. В ходе исследования автор приходит к выводу о том, что расширение видов мер юридической ответственности за коррупционные правонарушения, назначение тяжких телесных наказаний за совершение такого рода деяний не привело к искоренению коррупции в рассматриваемом историческом периоде. In the article, the author analyzes the legal monuments of the Moscow state of the XV-XVI centuries and public legal documents. The problem of the lack of legislative consolidation of such concepts as «corruption», «corruption offense» is revealed. An attempt is made to define these concepts. The understanding of these phenomena in the XV-XVI centuries is compared with the modern legal interpretation. The main aspects and features of corruption offenses typical for the period of the Moscow state are analyzed and disclosed. Measures to counteract corruption at the present stage and in the considered time period are listed. We study not only such well-known monuments of Russian law as sudebniki, but also other sources of law from the XV-XVI centuries the measures of legal responsibility for committing corruption offenses are Listed and disclosed. A brief description of the types of legal liability applied for corruption offenses is given. The author emphasizes the severity of the criminal responsibility that was borne by lower judicial officials for committing corruption offenses. The author draws attention to the importance that the legislator of the period under review attached to the fight against official arbitrariness on the ground. In the course of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the expansion of the types of measures of legal responsibility for corruption offenses, the appointment of heavy corporal punishment for committing such acts did not lead to the eradication of corruption in the considered historical period.


Author(s):  
Martin Camper

Chapter 3 explores the interpretive stasis of definition, where there is a question concerning the intended or appropriate scope of the basic sense of a term in a text. The chapter shows how rhetors, by persuasively articulating a definition and resorting to various lines of argument, can shift the meaning of passages and reframe controversies hinging on a text’s interpretation by adjusting the scope of a single term. But only linchpin terms (similar to Burke’s and Weaver’s ultimate terms) have this governing quality. The chapter’s central example consists of oral arguments from the 2010 Supreme Court case McDonald v. City of Chicago that ultimately determined US citizens have a fundamental right to bear arms. The case partly rested on whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s phrase privileges or immunities, generally protected from state infringement, includes this right within its scope. The centrality of definitional disputes to legal interpretation is also considered.


The colonization policies of Ancient Rome followed a range of legal arrangements concerning property distribution and state formation, documented in fragmented textual and epigraphic sources. Once antiquarian scholars rediscovered and scrutinized these sources in the Renaissance, their analysis of the Roman colonial model formed the intellectual background for modern visions of empire. What does it mean to exercise power at and over distance? This book foregrounds the pioneering contribution to this debate of the great Italian Renaissance scholar Carlo Sigonio (1522/3–84). His comprehensive legal interpretation of Roman society and Roman colonization, which for more than two centuries remained the leading account of Roman history, has been of immense (but long disregarded) significance for the modern understanding of Roman colonial practices and of the legal organization and implications of empire. Bringing together experts on Roman history, the history of classical scholarship, and the history of international law, this book analyses the context, making, and impact of Sigonio’s reconstruction of the Roman colonial model. It shows how his legal interpretation of Roman colonization originated and how it informed the development of legal colonial discourse, from visions of imperial reform and colonial independence in the nascent United States of America, to Enlightenment accounts of property distribution, culminating in a specific juridical strand in twentieth-century Roman historiography. Through a detailed analysis of scholarly and political visions of Roman colonization from the Renaissance until today, this book shows the enduring relevance of legal interpretations of the Roman colonial model for modern experiences of empire.


Author(s):  
Donald R. Davis

This chapter examines the history and use of maxims in legal traditions from several areas of the world. A comparison of legal maxims in Roman, Hindu, Jewish, and Islamic law shows that maxims function both as a basic tools for legal interpretation and as distillations of substantive legal principles applicable to many cases. Maxims are characterized by their unquestionable character, even though it is often easy to demonstrate contradictions between them. As a result, legal maxims seem linked to the recurrent desire for law to have a moral foundation. Although maxims have lost their purchase in most contemporary jurisprudence and legal practice, categories such as “canons of construction,” “legal principles,” and “super precedents” all show similarities to the brief and limited collections of maxims in older legal traditions. The search for core ideas underlying the law thus continues under different names.


1951 ◽  
Vol 97 (408) ◽  
pp. 468-479
Author(s):  
E. O. Lewis

Mental deficiency and its synonym “oligophrenia” are terms interpreted very differently in various countries; this has made it almost impossible to compare the statistical data of these countries. The concept the lay person in this country has of mental defect applies with few exceptions to individuals with intelligence quotients below 60 per cent., i.e., idiots, imbecile and obvious simpletons. When a person with this conception of mental defect—and we must admit that it corresponds fairly closely to the legal interpretation of the Mental Deficiency Acts in this country—is told that mental deficiency is a major social problem, the statement is received with some measure of incredulity. There is some justification for this incredulity. The statement is ambiguous and is based upon some rather muddled thinking. If we accept this legal and administrative interpretation of mental defect only about 1 per cent. of the population can be said to be mentally defective. Probably no other 1 per cent. of the population has such a high proportion of decent, docile and law-abiding citizens. If so, what meaning can we give to the statement that mental deficiency is a major social problem ?


Author(s):  
K. P. Purnhagen ◽  
E. van Herpen ◽  
S. Kamps ◽  
F. Michetti

AbstractFindings from behavioural research are gaining increased interest in EU legislation, specifically in the area of unfair commercial practices. Prior research on the Mars case (Purnhagen and van Herpen 2017) has left open whether empirical evidence can provide an indication that this practice of using oversized indications of additional volume alters the transactional decision of consumers. This, however, is required to determine the “misleadingness” of such a practice in the legal sense as stipulated by the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC. The current paper closes this gap by illustrating how behavioural research can inform legal interpretation. In particular, it extends the previous research in two important ways: first, by examining the actual choice that people make; and second, by investigating whether the effects remain present in a context where a comparison product is available. Yet, while supporting and extending the findings of the study from Purnhagen and van Herpen (2017) on deceptiveness, the current study could not produce empirical evidence of a clear influence on the transactional decision of consumers, in the way “UCPD” requires.


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