Minimal Semantics and Legal Interpretation

In this paper I will tackle three issues. First, I aim to briefly outline the backbone of semantic minimalism, while focusing on the idea of ‘liberal truth conditions’ developed by Emma Borg in her book ‘Minimal Semantics’. Secondly, I will provide an account of the three principal views in legal interpretation: intentionalism, textualism and purposivism. All of them are based on a common denominator labelled by lawyers ‘literal meaning’. In the paper I suggest a novel way of viewing this common denominator as almost identical to the Borgian ‘liberal truth conditions’, at least at a conceptual level. In the third section I will focus on the conceptual similarities between the two ideas. I intend to depict that, although legal theorists do not admit it explicitly, they treat literal legal meaning as minimal propositional content that can be ascribed liberal truth conditions. There are two main objections to liberal truth conditions: their under-determinacy and unintuitive character. Both objections can be applied to ‘literal meaning’. However, the idea of liberal truth conditions gives an adequate account of what lawyers call literal meaning and is helpful in explaining the mechanism of understanding of provisions and reasons leading to the necessity of statutory interpretation.     

A Philosophical Approach to Norm Logic

The author outlines his views on the essence of philosophical logic. There are two means of philosophical argumentation: intuition and analysis of the problem situation under examination. Logical intuition can be replaced by improved intuition based on new intellectual constructions. Then the author explains—in opposition to von Wright—the main philosophical traits of his conception of norm logic. The structure of the information processing determining action justifies the application of dichotomous semantics in action theory and in practical philosophy. The theory of action and institutions is based on three anthropological features of man: our capacity of acting, our being a zoon politikon , and our capacity to form institutions. These features determine our ontology, our semantics and the logics of practical thinking. The action-theoretical approach leads to a formal and finalistic theory of action in which action is not only analysed as an element of the norm content, but as the essential basis of the whole field of practical philosophy. In the frame of this action theory a conception of freedom of will is provided which does not contrast with determinism. The formalism of action is applied in two different problem situations: in action deliberation and in motive interpretation. Jørgensen's dilemma is discussed and overcome by the introduction of a generalised notion of inference. Deontic logic is confronted with the idea of a genuine logic of norms. The main principles of norm logic are discussed and a normative conditional is introduced. Von Wright's conception of a genuine norm logic is confronted with the present author's conception. The author shows that norm-logical skepticism would be detrimental to analytical jurisprudence.     

Justice and Well‐Orderedness: Saving Rawls from Luck Egalitarianism

This paper develops a full account of Rawls's notion of a well‐ordered society and uses it to address two luck egalitarian objections to his principles of justice. The first is an internal criticism which claims that Rawls's account of justice is better captured by a responsibility‐sensitive egalitarian account. The second is an external objection according to which, regardless of the alleged inconsistency between Rawls's principles and his account of justice, we should reject those principles in favour of a responsibility‐sensitive criterion because it better captures our moral intuitions about distributive justice. The argument presented answers both objections by defending the value of well‐orderedness and showing the difficulties of responsibility‐sensitive egalitarian conceptions in realizing this ideal.     

Desert,Bell Motion,and Fairness

In this critical review, I address two themes from Shelly Kagan’s path-breaking The Geometry of Desert. First I explain the so-called “bell motion” of desert mountains—a notion reflecting that, ceteris paribus, as people get more virtuous it becomes more important not to give them too little of whatever they deserve than not to give them too much. Having argued that Kagan’s defense of it is unsatisfactory, I offer two objections to the existence of the bell motion. Second, I take up an unrelated issue—the relation between comparative and non-comparative desert. I argue that, given a certain disaggregationist view of comparative desert, it is possible that comparative desert is not satisfied, even if non-comparative desert is perfectly so. Unlike my objections to the bell motion, this possibility adds further complexity to an already complex Kaganian account of desert.     

A Dilemma for Protected Reasons

Joseph Raz’s account of norms provides that a norm requiring an agent to φ is a reason to φ protected by an exclusionary reason not to act on some other reasons. I present a dilemma concerning the determination of the contents of this set of excluded reasons. The question is whether or not the set includes reasons that count in favour of φing. If the answer is yes, the account is committed to a picture of norms that seems inconsistent with the phenomenology, in that it rules out acting on the very reasons on which the norm is based. If the answer is no, the account licenses a problematic form of double counting of reasons. I conclude that Raz’s protected reasons account of norms must be rejected, and tentatively suggest a solution to the problem posed by the dilemma.     

A Proposal for Formalizing the "No Case Exists" Objections Procedure at the International Court of Justice

This paper describes and analyses the "no case exists" objectionsthat have been made and dealt with in various ways before theInternational Court of Justice. The argument underlying theseobjections usually runs as follows: the Court clearly or manifestlylacks jurisdiction or there is clearly no dispute. This wouldlead to the result that no case exists, because, for a caseto exist, there must be, at a minimum, some dispute as to theCourt's jurisdiction so as to trigger the Court's function underArticle 36(6) of the Statute. Neither the Statute nor the Rulesof Court contains a specific procedure for addressing such objectionsand the various existing procedures do not allow the Statesmaking such objections to achieve their goals. The parties andthe Court have had to struggle with these objections in variousirregular ways. This paper proposes that the Court formalizethe procedure to deal with these objections by amending theRules of Court to provide for a "no case exists" objectionsprocedure. The essay concludes by presenting a proposed ruleas an illustration.     

Public Reason,Neutrality and Civic Virtues

In this paper I argue that political liberalism is not the “minimalist liberalism” characterised by Michael Sandel and that it does not support the vision of public life characteristic of the procedural republic. I defend this claim by developing two points. The first concerns Rawls's account of public reason. Drawing from examples in Canadian free speech jurisprudence I show how restrictions on commercial advertising, obscenity and hate propaganda can be justified by political values. Secondly, political liberalism also attends to the identity, and not just the interests, of its citizens. It attempts to cultivate certain virtues of character. But it does so in a way that does not entail the acceptance of a comprehensive or perfectionist doctrine. Rawls's defence of neutrality of aim does not mean the state should be neutral towards all the views its citizens espouse. I conclude that political liberalism shares little with the doctrine Sandel claims is embedded in American law.     

关于我国民事再审程序指导思想之反思

“实事求是、有错必纠”是我国民事再审程序的指导思想。但是实践中一直不能解决的“申诉难”、“再审滥”等问题的存在却一再对该原则提出质疑。原因是通常所谓的“实事求是、有错必纠”原则在民事司法中缺乏现实基础和具体操作性;进一步,真正的“实事求是”要求尊重民事诉讼的独特规律,对生效裁判错误区别对待,而不是机械地“有错必纠”。总之,民事再审制度之改革与完善,要求我们必须对这一原则进行重新认识和创新     

法社会学视野下的乡村法治困境解读

乡村法治化运动在乡村社会遭遇的窘态与困惑是发起者始料未及的,国家法治被乡村社会有意无意的歪曲,“下乡的法律”不断被乡土社会知识传统解读,法治与乡村社会之间的冲突愈显突出。本文放弃简单地对法治与乡村社会二者中的任何一方进行批判的进路,试图通过借鉴和采用法社会学的一些观点和方法,强调回到中国的特定语境,回到乡村的生活场域和具体经验中,探讨当前造成乡村法治化困境的政治、经济、文化等因素,分析实现乡村社会法治化之可能和必要,进而提出实现乡村法治化的可行路径。     

The “Paper Case”: Evidence and Narrative of a Terrorism Trial in Delhi

Through an ethnography of a terrorism trial that followed bomb‐blasts in Delhi in 2008, this article seeks to understand the centrality of files and documentary practices to the production of legal truth. By following key documents regarding the case against one man I call Fahad, I argue that the truth produced in a trial crucially depends a chain of seemingly insignificant certificatory practices‐the signatures, countersignatures, stamps, and seals that appear on documents. What emerges in the account I provide is that juridical truth is less a matter of finding ‘what really happened,’ and more about the competition between narratives that depend on the certificatory correctness of humble sheets of paper.     

Necessity, Moral Liability, and Defensive Harm

A person who is liable to defensive harm has forfeited his rights against the imposition of the harm, and so is not wronged if that harm is imposed. A number of philosophers, most notably Jeff McMahan, argue for an instrumental account of liability, whereby a person is liable to defensive harm when he is either morally or culpably responsible for an unjust threat of harm to others, and when the imposition of defensive harm is necessary to avert the threatened unjust harm. Others may favour a purely noninstrumental account of liability: one that looks only to the past behaviour of the potentially liable person. We argue that both views are vulnerable to serious objections. Instead we develop and defend a new view of liability to defensive harm: the pluralist account. The pluralist account states that liability to defensive harm has at least two bases. First, if an attacker is morally or culpably responsible for an unjust attack then he has forfeited what we call his agency right, and in doing so he has made himself partially liable to defensive harm. Whether the attacker is fully liable to defensive harm depends, however, on whether the imposition of defensive harm would infringe a different right held by the attacker: his humanitarian right. Humanitarian rights are rights to be provided with urgently needed resources or to be protected from serious harms when others can do so at reasonably low cost. We argue the pluralist account avoids the objections to which the instrumental and noninstrumental views are vulnerable, coheres with our intuitive reactions in a wide range of cases, and sheds new light on the way different rights combine to determine a person??s liability to suffer harm.     

The will theory of rights: A defence

Hart's will theory of rights has been subjected to at least three significant criticisms. First, it is thought unable to account for the full range of legal rights. Second, it is incoherent, for it values freedom while permitting an agent the option of alienating his or her capacity for choice. Third, any attempt to remedy the first two problems renders the theory reducible to the rival benefit theory. My aim is to address these objections. I argue that will theory has been made vulnerable due to misinterpretation. The theory has been characterized as placing great stress on liberty rights (or claim-protected liberties), whereas it is powers that are central, and hence not choice but control. My argument does, however, depend upon appealing to an extra-legal notion — the hypothetical contract — but I argue that this is consistent with the main aim of a theory of rights.     

Hart,Legal rules and palm tree justice

In this paper I defend a liberal theory about how legal rules can and ought to be interpreted. The theory emerges from a critical examination of H. L. A. Hart's influential views on the limited but unavoidable indeterminacy of legal rules. I begin with a brief sketch of Hart's early theory (as it is traditionally understood) offering various suggestions as to how it might usefully be modified. Next, several possible objections to my modifications are sketched and criticized. Finally, reasons are provided for supposing that the modified theory may well represent Hart's current position.     

Plays,Performances and Power Struggles – Examining Copyright's ‘Integrity’ in the Field of Theatre

This article explores the notion of ‘integrity’ under copyright law by analysing examples of 'integrity‐based objections' in the field of theatre. These objections typically involve playwrights objecting to changes being made to their copyright works by other parties, such as directors and actors. This analysis is deepened by the use of two concepts from the field of art theory – ‘aura’, as put forward by Walter Benjamin, and ‘trajectory’, as outlined by Bruno Latour and Adam Lowe. Finally, to shed further light on the issues raised, the work of Pierre Bourdieu is used to present new empirical research recently undertaken by the author in the field of UK theatre. This research demonstrates that ‘power struggles’ are a common feature of theatrical collaboration; that copyright is deeply implicated in the way such power struggles are conceived; and moreover, that resolving these power struggles successfully – including taking account of ‘integrity‐based objections’ – is crucial to theatrical practice.     

The Zeal of the Civil Advocate

This article is concerned with the accountability of the civil advocate for results obtained for a client. It distinguishes the criminal trial by arguing that for effective implementation the adversary system, as it is commonly understood, requires that the professional advocates be equally competent and equally adversary and that because it does not meet these criteria, the criminal trial cannot be looked to as a model either of the adversary system or of the behavior of advocates in the civil trial. Rules of behavior for the civil litigator should be drawn with the primary objective of ascertaining truth. Moreover, the civil litigator cannot claim immunity from moral accountability by reference to the lawyer's role; he or she is personally accountable for an immoral result obtained for a client. Seeking to avoid this accountability all lawyers might reject an immoral but lawful cause, so that persons with such causes would be deprived of professional representation. The conflict between the lawyer's personal morality and the social value of professional assistance is resolved by reference to a formula for assigning counsel similar to those in Mathews v. Eldridge and Lassiter v. Department of Social Services. The author analyzes the moral dilemma of a lawyer who is so assigned and proposes a solution.     

隐私的价值独特性:个人信息为何应受保护?

要想准确理解已经开始施行的《个人信息保护法》,就必须恰当回答“个人信息为何值得保护”的问题,而这个问题的答案经常与“隐私”的价值关联在一起。但是,对隐私的理解,主要被一种“隐私并不具备独特价值”的化约论所统治;因此,只有击败化约论,才能最终证明隐私的价值独特性,也才能最终说明隐私为何值得保护。击败隐私化约论最主要的理由是,如果认为隐私不具备价值独特性,那么对任何特定个体而言,就只能提供“我是我”的对待,而这种对待将会带来贬损、甚至否认“我是人”的结果,这将会严重损害人的尊严。     

Reformulating the Buddhist Free Will Problem: Why There can be no Definitive Solution

In recent years, scholars have become increasingly interested in reconstructing a Buddhist stance on the free will problem. Since then, Buddhism has been variously described as implicitly hard determinist, paleo-compatibilist, neo-compatibilist and libertarian. Some scholars, however, question the legitimacy of Buddhist free will theorizing, arguing that Buddhism does not share sufficiently many presuppositions required to articulate the problem. This paper argues that, though Buddhist and Western versions of the free will problem are not perfectly isomorphic, a problem analogous to that expressed in Western philosophy emerges within the Buddhist framework. This analogous problem concerns the difficulty of explaining karmic responsibility in a world governed by dependent origination. This paper seeks to reconstruct an approach to free will consistent with Madhyamaka philosophy and, in so doing, to demonstrate that the mutual exclusivity of positions such as hard determinism and libertarianism is, from the Madhyamaka perspective, merely superficial. By building on the perspectivalist theory advanced by Daniel Breyer, it is clear that a Madhyamaka stance on free will demands the wholesale abandonment of perspectives, such that the idea of any one solution as definitive is disavowed. Taken to its logical conclusion, therefore, perspectivalism entails the relative truth of perspectivalism itself.     

Reply to Five Critics of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Why Tolerate Religion?</Emphasis>

This is my contribution to a symposium on my book Why Tolerate Religion? (Princeton, 2013), in which I respond to essays by François Boucher (Montreal) and Cécile Laborde (University College London), Frederick Schauer (Virginia), Corey Brettschneider (Brown), and Peter Jones (Newcastle). I clarify and revise my view of the sense in which some religious beliefs are “insulated from reasons and evidence” in response to the criticisms of Boucher and Laborde (2015), but take issue with other aspects of their critique. I defend most of my original argument against utilitarian and egalitarian objections from, respectively, Schauer and Brettschneider. I also discuss and defend the “No Exemptions” approach to conscientious objection to neutral laws of general applicability against a variety of objections, arguing, in particular, that my view is probably not very different from that of Jones.