Precedent and Open Texture

Abstract

This chapter presents a semantic account of open-textured predicates, particularly in the law, but also in language more broadly. The central idea is that judgments involving open-textured predicates are evaluated against a background set of previous authoritative decisions involving these predicates, which then constrain later applications in just the way that precedent cases constrain later decisions in the common law. In developing this idea, the paper relies on the “reason model” of precedential constraint, derived directly from recent research in artificial intelligence and law as well as previous work by Grant Lamond. According to the reason model, what matters about a precedent case is the court’s assessment of importance among the competing reasons presented by that case, which is represented as a priority ordering among these reasons. Later courts are then constrained simply to respect the priority ordering on reasons established by earlier decisions.