Vagueness, Interpretation, and the Law

Abstract

It is widely accepted that vagueness in law calls for a specific interpretation of the law-interpretation that changes the meaning of the law and makes it more precise. According to this view, vagueness causes gaps in the law, and the role of legal interpretation in the case of vagueness is to fill such gaps. I argue that this view is mistaken and defend the thesis that vagueness in law calls only for an application of the law to the case at hand, leaving the meaning of the law intact.

Theories of Vagueness and Theories of Law

“…It is common to think that one's theory of vagueness has implications for one's commitments about discretion and whether discretionary decisions involve changing the content of the law (see also Dworkin 1985: ch. 5, Endicott 2000, 2011a, Jónsson 2009, Soames 2009. The above theses about discretion are prima facie contextualist-friendly and epistemicist-unfriendly; here is Soames:…”

Analogy and Exemplary Reasoning in Legal Discourse

“…In the second circumstance, the content of the provision will be restricted: the boundary between C ignorant because a vague sentence is neither true nor false (Fine, 1975); an incoherentist claims that we do not know whether a vague term apply to a case, because our language sometimes is incoherent (Dummett, 1975); a contextualist assumes that we are (apparently) ignorant of the conditions of application of vague terms because these conditions shift with context (see Raffman, 1994;and Soames, 1999). For a discussion of these accounts of vagueness as to legal language, see Endicott, 2000;Jónsson, 2009;and Poscher, 2012a. 22 The extension and anti-extension of a sentence S should not be confused here with the extensive interpretation of S. The extension of a sentence is the set of objects, events, or states of affairs S refers to, whereas the anti-extension is the complementary set thereof.…”

Analogy and Exemplary Reasoning in Legal Discourse

“…In the second circumstance, the content of the provision will be restricted: the boundary between C ignorant because a vague sentence is neither true nor false (Fine, 1975); an incoherentist claims that we do not know whether a vague term apply to a case, because our language sometimes is incoherent (Dummett, 1975); a contextualist assumes that we are (apparently) ignorant of the conditions of application of vague terms because these conditions shift with context (see Raffman, 1994;and Soames, 1999). For a discussion of these accounts of vagueness as to legal language, see Endicott, 2000;Jónsson, 2009;and Poscher, 2012a. 22 The extension and anti-extension of a sentence S should not be confused here with the extensive interpretation of S. The extension of a sentence is the set of objects, events, or states of affairs S refers to, whereas the anti-extension is the complementary set thereof.…”