Practical reason and the ontology of statutes

Conclusion A common working assumption of theories of statutory interpretation is that the object of interpretation is uncontroversial. It is assumed that dispute only centers on the epistemics of interpretation. The assumption is unsound. Theories of statutory interpretation are importantly different from other sorts of theories. The subject matter of other sorts of theories can be identified uncontroversially. In the case of statutory interpretation, the object of interpretation is controversial. What counts as the object of interpretation therefore needs specification. Without the required specification, criteria of evidence and warrant justifying an interpretation are not well-defined.An adequate theory of statutory interpreation must contain both epistemic and ontological components. It must provide criteria for treating information as evidence relevant to, and standards for, interpreting a statute. Providing such criteria in turn requires also giving an account of the object of interpretation — what a statute consists in. Practical reason theories fail to provide acceptable criteria and standards for interpreting a statute. These accounts therefore fail to supply an adequate epistemic components for a theory of statutory interpretation. As to the ontological component, things are less clear. I have argued in sections II and III that this component is partly a matter of substantive political theory. Although practical reason theorists fail to offer a substantive political theory for defining the proper object of interpretation, their accounts are in principle ontologically unobjectionable. At most, practical reason accounts are incomplete. Of course, practical reason accounts might still be defective for other reasons. They may invoke a defective substantive political theory. Or the constraints imposed on properties of a statute or relations between them may not in fact affectuate the goals set by the theory. Such failings would be normative, not metaphysical. Since practical reason accounts are epistemically inadequate and ontologically incomplete, legal theorists should find the accounts less attractive than they do, even putting aside the normative soundness of the accounts.I thank Barry Adler, John Harrison, George Rutherglen, William Stuntz and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. I am particularly grateful to Larry Alexander for discussions and comments on previous drafts of this article. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Death in birth

The number of women in poor countries who die in childbirth has barely changed in two decades--and this despite a host of medical breakthroughs. How can the incidence of this devastating human tragedy be reduced?     

The right to a fair criminal trial： A South African perspective

The right to a free and fair trial is one of the most basic human fights afforded to mankind. In South Africa, prior to 1994, this right was afforded to accused persons by common law only. The criminal justice system in South Africa however has been changing radically since 1994 due to the inception of first the Interim Constitution and later the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. South Africa has a history of human rights abuses-also with regard to criminal trials. The right to a fair trial is now constitutionally enshrined and protected by the Bill of Rights. As a result thereof the application of this right by the South African courts has also changed and what would have passed muster in this regard prior to 1994 would not necessarily do so now. This paper seeks to explain what the right to a fair criminal trial in a democratic South Africa entails with reference to South Africa＇s international obligations in this regard as well as the provisions of the South African Constitution and case law.     

Do Moderate Voters Weigh Candidates’ Ideologies? Voters’ Decision Rules in the 2010 Congressional Elections

Models of voting behavior typically specify that all voters employ identical criteria to evaluate candidates. We argue that moderate voters weigh candidates’ policy/ideological positions far less than non-moderate voters, and we report analyses of survey data from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study that substantiate these arguments. Across a wide range of models and measurement strategies, we find consistent evidence that liberal and conservative voters are substantially more responsive to candidate ideology than more centrist voters. Simply put, moderate voters appear qualitatively different from liberals and conservatives, a finding that has important implications for candidate strategies and for political representation.