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- Title
Positivism and Interpreting Legal Content: Does Law Call for a Moral Semantics?
- Authors
HIMMA, KENNETH EINAR
- Abstract
In two fascinating papers, Jules Coleman has been considering an idea, first articulated and defended by Scott Shapiro in his forthcoming book Legality, that law calls for a moral semantics. In a recent paper, Coleman argues it is a conceptual truth that legal content stating behavioral requirements, whether construed as propositions or imperatives, can “truthfully be redescribed as expressing a moral directive or authorization” ( Coleman 2007 , 592). For example, the directive “mail fraud is illegal” expresses, if not that mail fraud is morally wrong, then the idea that we have a content-independent moral reason for not committing mail fraud. In this essay, I will attempt to explicate and evaluate Coleman's arguments, as well as to determine what the “Redescription Thesis,” as I call it, amounts to.
- Subjects
POSITIVISM; LAW &; ethics; JURISPRUDENCE; SEMANTICS (Law); MAIL fraud; REASON
- Publication
Ratio Juris, 2009, Vol 22, Issue 1, p24
- ISSN
0952-1917
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1467-9337.2008.00410.x