Table Of ContentTHE NATURE AND VALUE OF VAGUENESS IN THE LAW
Lawmaking is – paradigmatically – a type of speech act: people make law by saying
things. It is natural to think, therefore, that the content of the law is determined
by what lawmakers communicate. However, what they communicate is sometimes
vague and, even when it is clear, the content itself is sometimes vague.
This monograph examines the nature and consequences of these two linguistic
sources of indeterminacy in the law. The aim is to give plausible answers to three
related questions: In virtue of what is the law vague? What might be good about
vague law? How should courts resolve cases of vagueness? It argues that vagueness
in the law is sometimes a good thing, although its value should not be overes-
timated. It also proposes a strategy for resolving borderline cases, arguing that
textualism and intentionalism – two leading theories of legal interpretation – often
complement rather than compete with each other.
Volume 10 in the series Law and Practical Reason
Law and Practical Reason
The intention of this series is that it should encompass monographs and
collections of essays that address the fundamental issues in legal philosophy. The
foci are conceptual and normative in character, not empirical. Studies addressing
the idea of law as a species of practical reason are especially welcome. Recognising
that there is no occasion sharply to distinguish analytic and systematic work in
the field from historico-critical research, the editors also welcome studies in the
history of legal philosophy. Contributions to the series, inevitably crossing disci-
plinary lines, will be of interest to students and professionals in moral, political,
and legal philosophy.
General Editor
Prof George Pavlakos (Glasgow)
Advisory Board
Prof Robert Alexy (Kiel)
Prof Samantha Besson (Collège de France and Fribourg, CH)
Prof Emilios Christodoulidis (Glasgow)
Prof Sean Coyle (Birmingham)
Prof Mattias Kumm (New York and Berlin)
Prof Stanley Paulson (St Louis and Kiel)
Prof Joseph Raz (Columbia Law School)
Prof Arthur Ripstein (Toronto)
Prof Scott Shapiro (Yale Law School)
Prof Victor Tadros (Warwick)
Recent titles in the series
Volume 6 : Law and Authority under the Guise of the Good
V eronica Rodriguez-Blanco
Volume 7 : Shared Authority
D imitrios Kyritsis
Volume 8: Private Law and the Value of Choice
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Volume 9 : Freedom and Force: Essays on Kant ’ s Legal Philosophy
Edited by Sari Kisilevsky and Martin J Stone
The Nature and Value of
Vagueness in the Law
Hrafn Asgeirsson
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First published in Great Britain 2020
Copyright © Hrafn Asgeirsson, 2020
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Names: Hrafn Asgeirsson, 1978- author.
Title: The nature and value of vagueness in the law / Hrafn Asgeirsson.
Description: Oxford ; New York : Hart, 2020. | Series: Law and practical reason; vol 10 |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019053935 (print) | LCCN 2019053936 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781849466066 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781509904457 (Epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Law—Interpretation and construction. | Law—Philosophy. |
Vagueness (Philosophy)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book has benefited from an incredible variety of interactions with a huge
number of people – colleagues, friends, and family – each of which I am incredibly
grateful for. Much of it is based on a doctoral thesis submitted at the University
of Southern California, although the bulk of the material has subsequently been
worked into stand-alone publications, often with significant additions. It is
presented here in its published version, along with a significant amount of new
material as well.
It is hard to overestimate my debt to Andrei Marmor, whose work and patient
advice has helped improve all aspects of the book. I considered myself particularly
lucky to be able to work with him during my time at USC and I’m grateful for
continued conversations and advice over the past several years.
Gideon Yaffe also provided me with excellent advice on countless occasions –
many of the ideas in this book are there in large part because of him. I would
also like to thank Scott Altman and Gary Watson for their input. Several of their
comments have helped me frame the issues in the book better, particularly in
chapter seven. As a general matter, my work also owes a lot to Scott Soames and
Mark Schroeder.
I would also like to thank the Australian Research Council for their support
during my postdoctoral time at Monash University, School of Law, as well as
my excellent colleagues during that time – Jeff Goldsworthy, Dale Smith, and
Patrick Emerton. Thanks also to the Icelandic Research Fund and the University
of Iceland for their support during my subsequent postdoctoral position,
and in particular to my colleagues Elmar Unnsteinsson, Finnur Dellsén, and
Eiríkur Smári Sigurðarson. I should also thank the University of Oxford Centre
for Ethics and Philosophy of Law, along with University College and the late
John Gardner, for their support during my time as HLA Hart Visiting Fellow.
Last, but certainly not least, I am grateful for my tremendous colleagues at the
University of Surrey, School of Law and the Surrey Centre for Law and Philoso-
phy. In addition, I would like to extend specific thanks to Kory DeClark, George
Pavlakos, Lawrence Solum, Alex Sarch, Ólafur Páll Jónsson, Timothy Endicott,
Brian Bix, Barbara Baum Levenbook, and Nicos Stavropoulos.
Finally, my greatest debt is to my wonderful wife, Anna Thorvaldsdottir. I’d like
to thank her, well, for everything, and dedicate this book to her.
vi Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the editors and publishers of the following prior publications
for the permission to incorporate them into the book:
“On the Possibility of Non-Literal Legislative Speech,” in A. Capone & F. Poggi
(eds.), Pragmatics and Law: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives (Dordrecht:
Springer, 2017), pp. 67–101
“Can Legal Practice Adjudicate Between Theories of Vagueness?” in R. Poscher
and G. Keil (eds.), Vagueness and Law: Philosophical and Legal Perspectives
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 95–126
“Expected Applications, Contextual Enrichment, and Objective Communicative
Content: The Linguistic Case for Conception-Textualism,” Legal Theory
21 (2015): 115–135; © Cambridge University Press 2017
“On the Instrumental Value of Vagueness in the Law,” Ethics 125:2 (2015):
425–448; © 2015 by the University of Chicago
“Vagueness and Power-Delegation in Law: A Reply to Sorensen,” in M. Freeman
and F. Smith (eds.), Current Legal Issues: Law and Language (Oxford University
Press, 2013), pp. 344–355
“Vagueness, Comparative Value, and the “Lawmakers’ Challenge”, ”Archiv für
Rechts- & Sozialphilosophie 98:3 (2012): 299–316
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������v
Introduction .....................................................................................................................1
1. Authority, Communication and Legal Content ...................................................6
I. The Communicative-Content Theory of Law
and Its (Recent) Critics .................................................................................7
A. Some Apparent ‘Gaps’ between Communicative
Content and Legal Content .................................................................9
II. The Pro Tanto View about Legal Content ................................................13
A. The Basic Notions, and ‘Mechanics’, of the Pro Tanto View .........14
B. How the Pro Tanto View Handles the Gappiness Problem ..........17
III. Authority, Communication and Legal Content ......................................20
A. Legally Authoritative Expression and the Semantics
of Legal Statements .............................................................................22
B. Law’s Expression and the Metaphysics of Legal Content ..............26
C. The ‘Necessity’ of the Communicative-content Thesis ..................33
D. A (Worthwhile) Digression on Legal Positivism ............................35
E. The Problem of Collective Communicative
Intention ..............................................................................................38
2. On the Instrumental Value of Vagueness in the Law ........................................43
I. Incommensurate Multidimensionality, Extravagant Vagueness
and Endicott’s Argument from Instrumental Necessity ........................44
II. Incommensurate Multidimensionality is Doing the Real Work ...........46
III. The Impossibility of Specification .............................................................48
IV. Are Incommensurate Multidimensionality and – Hence –
Vagueness Really Necessary? .....................................................................50
V. Waldron’s Argument from Facilitation ....................................................55
VI. Possible Reply: Vagueness Really is a Means to the Relevant Ends ......59
VII. Another Possible Reply: The Logic of Value Validates Closure
under Necessary Consequence .................................................................61
3. Vagueness and Power Delegation in Law ...........................................................63
I. Sorensen’s View ...........................................................................................64
A. Absolute Borderline Cases, Relative Borderline Cases
and Answering Resources .................................................................65
B. Borderline Cases and the Delegation of Power ..............................67
viii Contents
II. The Value of Vagueness ..............................................................................69
A. Evaluating the Value of Vagueness in Terms of ‘Better Than’ .......73
III. Summary ......................................................................................................76
4. Vagueness, Uncertainty and Behaviour ..............................................................78
I. Endicott’s Argument from Comparative Value .......................................78
A. Arbitrariness: The Cost of Precision May Be Greater
than the Cost of Vagueness ...............................................................79
B. Vagueness and Undercompliance ....................................................82
C. Vagueness and Overcompliance .......................................................83
D. Do Courts have Special Expertise? ..................................................84
II. Hadfield on the Value of Vagueness-related Uncertainty ......................85
III. Sorensen on Vagueness-related Uncertainty and Legal
Unpredictability ..........................................................................................87
5. On the Possibility of Non-literal Legislative Speech .........................................92
I. The Conditions for Non-literal Speech and the Legislative
Context .........................................................................................................93
A. Marmor’s Scepticism about Non-literal Legislative Speech ..........94
B. Assertion, Warrant for Belief, and the Obviousness
Requirement ........................................................................................96
C. Low-stakes Loose Talk Scenarios as Systematic
Counter-examples to Strict Warrant? ........................................98
D. Degree of Belief vs Outright Belief: Pragmatic
Encroachment on Utterance Content ............................................100
II. Revising the Argument: Restrict, Reconstruct, or Both? .....................102
A. Restricting the Argument: Is Obviousness Required
in Law? ...............................................................................................103
B. Reconstructing the Argument: The Richness
Requirement ......................................................................................104
C. Pragmatic Enrichment in the Legislative Context .......................107
D. The Pragmatics of Directives and the Context
of Legislation .....................................................................................109
III. Testing the Argument against Experience: Ekins’s Argument
from Examples ...........................................................................................112
IV. Indeterminacy about Utterance Content ...............................................118
A. Indeterminacy and Levels of Pragmatic Reasoning .....................120
B. Indeterminacy about Content and the Notion
of a Well-functioning Legal System ...............................................122
6. Textualism, Content and Interpretation ...........................................................124
I. Textualism and Legislative Intentions ....................................................124
II. Textualism, Communicative Content and Legal Content ...................126
III. Textualism/Originalism and Contextual Enrichment .........................128
Contents ix
IV. On the Plausibility of Conception Textualism ....................................134
V. Contemporary Textualism and the Problem
of Legislative Context .............................................................................141
VI. Textualism and Legal Interpretation ....................................................146
7. Resolving Cases of Vagueness ............................................................................149
I. Expressly Offered Rationale and the Notion of Commitment ..........150
II. Institutional Remedies to Non-co-operation ......................................154
III. Is Expression Required? .........................................................................158
IV. Commitment and Counterfactuals .......................................................160
V. Legislative Rationale and Levels of Abstraction..................................161
VI. Authority, Legislative Bargaining and Maximising
Fidelity to Law .........................................................................................164
VII. Expressly Acknowledged Compromise vs Tacitly
Acknowledged Compromise .................................................................168
VIII. Conclusion ...............................................................................................170
8. Legal Practice and Theories of Vagueness ........................................................172
I. Explaining the Value of Vagueness in the Law ....................................173
A. Two Rival Theories of Vagueness ..................................................173
B. Inconsistent Predictions Regarding the Value
of Vagueness in the Law .................................................................175
II. A Closer Look at Soames’s Argument ..................................................179
A. Soames’s Three Suppositions .........................................................180
III. Generalising the Argument: Other Cautionary Tales ........................182
A. Maurice v Judd: Does Legal Practice Show a Need
for ‘Carefully Formulated Metasemantic Principles’? ................182
B. Bronston v United States: Does Legal Practice Tell Us
Anything about Implicature in Non-co-operative Contexts? .....184
Bibliography ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������187
Index ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������193
