PHL 612 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Antipositivism, Legal Positivism, Critical Inquiry

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHL 612
• Professor: Frank Miller

Document Summary

Phl 612 module 4 - theories of law: ronald dworkin and interpretivism. Law as interpretation. (opens new window) critical inquiry, A proposition of law, in their view, is true just in case some event of a designated law- making kind has taken place, and otherwise not. (works well in simple cases) Natural law exists in virtue of objective moral truth rather than historical decision. Takes legal statements to be purely evaluative as distinct from descriptive. Interpretive of legal history (as opposed to descriptive or divorced from legal history) combines description and evaluation but is different from both. The idea of interpretation cannot serve as a general account of the nature or truth value of propositions of law, however, unless it is cut loose from these associations with speaker"s meaning or intention. Aesthetic hypothesis an interpretation of a piece of literature attempts to show which way of reading the text reveals it as the best work of art.