Wildy Logo
(020) 7242 5778
enquiries@wildy.com

Book of the Month

Cover of Company Directors: Duties, Liabilities and Remedies

Company Directors: Duties, Liabilities and Remedies

Edited by: Mark Arnold KC, Simon Mortimore KC
Price: £275.00

Lord Denning: Life, Law and Legacy



  


Welcome to Wildys

Watch


NEW EDITION Pre-order Mortgage Receivership: Law and Practice



 Stephanie Tozer, Cecily Crampin, Tricia Hemans
Practical guidance to relevant law & procedure


Offers for Newly Called Barristers & Students

Special Discounts for Newly Called & Students

Read More ...


Secondhand & Out of Print

Browse Secondhand Online

Read More...


Easter Closing

We will be closed between Friday 29th March and Monday 1st April for the Easter Bank Holidays, reopening at 8.30am on Tuesday 2nd April. Any orders received during this period will be processed with when we re-open.

Hide this message

The Nature and Value of Vagueness in the Law


ISBN13: 9781849466066
Published: April 2020
Publisher: Hart Publishing
Country of Publication: UK
Format: Hardback
Price: £85.00



Despatched in 5 to 7 days.

Also available as

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, it is sometimes vague what content they communicate, and even when it is clear, the content itself is sometimes vague.

In this monograph, Hrafn Asgeirsson 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? Asgeirsson argues that vagueness in the law is sometimes a good thing, although its value should not be overestimated.

He also proposes a strategy for resolving borderline cases, arguing that textualism and intentionalism - two leading theories of legal interpretation - in a significant sense often complement rather than compete with each other.

Subjects:
Jurisprudence
Contents:
1. Authority, Communication and Legal Content
I. The Communicative-Content Theory of Law and Its (Recent) Critics
II. The Pro Tanto View about Legal Content
III. Authority, Communication and Legal Content
2. On the Instrumental Value of Vagueness in the Law
I. Incommensurate Multidimensionality, Extravagant Vagueness and Endicott's Argument from Instrumental Necessity
II. Incommensurate Multidimensionality is Doing the Real Work
III. The Impossibility of Specification
IV. Are Incommensurate Multidimensionality and – Hence – Vagueness Really Necessary?
V. Waldron's Argument from Facilitation
VI. Possible Reply: Vagueness Really is a Means to the Relevant Ends
VII. Another Possible Reply: The Logic of Value Validates Closure under Necessary Consequence
3. Vagueness and Power Delegation in Law
I. Sorensen's View
II. The Value of Vagueness
III. Summary
4. Vagueness, Uncertainty and Behaviour
I. Endicott's Argument from Comparative Value
II. Hadfield on the Value of Vagueness-related Uncertainty
III. Sorensen on Vagueness-related Uncertainty and Legal Unpredictability
5. On the Possibility of Non-literal Legislative Speech
I. The Conditions for Non-literal Speech and the Legislative Context
II. Revising the Argument: Restrict, Reconstruct, or Both?
III. Testing the Argument against Experience: Ekins's Argument from Examples
IV. Indeterminacy about Utterance Content
6. Textualism, Content and Interpretation
I. Textualism and Legislative Intentions
II. Textualism, Communicative Content and Legal Content
III. Textualism/Originalism and Contextual Enrichment
IV. On the Plausibility of Conception Textualism
V. Contemporary Textualism and the Problem of Legislative Context
VI. Textualism and Legal Interpretation
7. Resolving Cases of Vagueness
I. Expressly Offered Rationale and the Notion of Commitment
II. Institutional Remedies to Non-co-operation
III. Is Expression Required?
IV. Commitment and Counterfactuals
V. Legislative Rationale and Levels of Abstraction
VI. Authority, Legislative Bargaining and Maximising Fidelity to Law
VII. Expressly Acknowledged Compromise vs Tacitly Acknowledged Compromise
VIII. Conclusion
8. Legal Practice and Theories of Vagueness
I. Explaining the Value of Vagueness in the Law
II. A Closer Look at Soames's Argument
III. Generalising the Argument: Other Cautionary Tales

Series: Law and Practical Reason

Law's Moral Indifference ISBN 9781849460149
To be published April 2025
Hart Publishing
£60.00
A Dynamic Approach to Hans Kelsen's General Theory of Norms ISBN 9781509942763
To be published December 2024
Bloomsbury Academic
£85.00
New Essays on the Nature of Legal Reasoning ISBN 9781509958801
Published November 2023
Hart Publishing
£42.99
£42.99
Law's Humility: Enlarging the Scope of Jurisprudential Disagreement ISBN 9781509945191
Published October 2022
Hart Publishing
£31.99
New Essays on the Nature of Legal Reasoning (eBook) ISBN 9781509937660
Published May 2022
Hart Publishing
£38.69
(ePub)
Buy
New Essays on the Nature of Legal Reasoning ISBN 9781509937653
Published May 2022
Hart Publishing
£90.00
The Making of Constitutional Democracy: From Creation to Application of Law ISBN 9781509905225
Published January 2022
Hart Publishing
£90.00
£38.69
(ePub)
Buy
£33.29
(ePub)
Buy
£75.00
Law's Humility: Enlarging the Scope of Jurisprudential Disagreement ISBN 9781509936502
Published February 2021
Hart Publishing
£75.00
£28.79
(ePub)
Buy
The Nature and Value of Vagueness in the Law (eBook) ISBN 9781509904457
Published April 2020
Hart Publishing
£76.50
(ePub)
Buy
Freedom and Force: Essays on Kant's Legal Philosophy ISBN 9781509932160
Published September 2019
Hart Publishing
£39.99
Private Law and the Value of Choice ISBN 9781509929740
Published June 2019
Hart Publishing
£39.99
Freedom and Force: Essays on Kant's Legal Philosophy ISBN 9781849463164
Published May 2017
Hart Publishing
£95.00
Freedom and Force: Essays on Kant's Legal Philosophy (eBook) ISBN 9781782253075
Published May 2017
Hart Publishing
£35.99
(ePub)
Buy
Shared Authority: Courts and Legislatures in Legal Theory ISBN 9781509913794
Published January 2017
Hart Publishing
£31.99
Private Law and the Value of Choice ISBN 9781841138862
Published January 2017
Hart Publishing
£95.00
Private Law and the Value of Choice (eBook) ISBN 9781509902842
Published January 2017
Hart Publishing
£35.99
(ePub)
Buy
Law and Authority under the Guise of the Good ISBN 9781509908448
Published September 2016
Hart Publishing
£28.99
Shared Authority: Courts and Legislatures in Legal Theory (eBook) ISBN 9781782255116
Published January 2015
Hart Publishing
£28.79
(ePub)
Buy
Shared Authority: Courts and Legislatures in Legal Theory ISBN 9781849463898
Published January 2015
Hart Publishing
£85.00
Law and Authority under the Guise of the Good (eBook) ISBN 9781782254270
Published July 2014
Hart Publishing
£26.09
(ePub)
Buy
Law and Authority under the Guise of the Good ISBN 9781849464499
Published July 2014
Hart Publishing
£80.00
Hannah Arendt and the Law (eBook) ISBN 9781847319326
Published August 2013
Hart Publishing
£29.69
(ePub)
Buy
Hannah Arendt and the Law ISBN 9781849464970
Published August 2013
Hart Publishing
£32.99
Law, Virtue and Justice ISBN 9781849461757
Published December 2012
Hart Publishing
£100.00
Law, Virtue and Justice (eBook) ISBN 9781782250333
Published December 2012
Hart Publishing
£90.00
(ePub)
Buy
The Logic of Autonomy: Law, Morality and Autonomous Reasoning ISBN 9781849463461
Published November 2012
Hart Publishing
£95.00
The Logic of Autonomy: Law, Morality and Autonomous Reasoning (eBook) ISBN 9781782250203
Published November 2012
Hart Publishing
£85.50
(ePub)
Buy
Hannah Arendt and the Law ISBN 9781849461436
Published April 2012
Hart Publishing
£95.00
New Essays on the Normativity of Law ISBN 9781849462389
Published August 2011
Hart Publishing
£95.00
New Essays on the Normativity of Law (eBook) ISBN 9781847318237
Published August 2011
Hart Publishing
£85.50
(ePub)
Buy
The Normative Claim of Law ISBN 9781841139678
Published October 2009
Hart Publishing
£100.00
The Normative Claim of Law (eBook) ISBN 9781847317254
Published October 2009
Hart Publishing
£90.00
(ePub)
Buy
A Fair Criminal Law ISBN 9781849463768

Hart Publishing
Publication Abandoned