Nature and Value of Vagueness in the Law

Hrafn Asgeirsson is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Law at the University of Surrey, School of Law.

[Vagueness in law has been] a focal point of jurisprudence for six decades, and Asgeirsson’s The Nature and Value of Vagueness in Law is an important contribution to this field … the book really does make a lot of progress, on an awful lot of issues. Plus, it’s refreshingly precise. Nary an argument goes by without the premises being explicitly identified.

• 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 Content2. 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 Consequence3. Vagueness and Power Delegation in Law I. Sorensen’s View II. The Value of Vagueness III. Summary4. 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 Unpredictability5. 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 Content6. 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 Interpretation7. 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 AbstractionVI. Authority, Legislative Bargaining and Maximising Fidelity to Law VII. Expressly Acknowledged Compromise vs Tacitly Acknowledged Compromise VIII. Conclusion8. 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