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HOW A STATUTE APPLIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2006

Barbara Baum Levenbook
Barbara Baum Levenbook
Affiliation:
North Carolina State University Department of Philosophy and Religion
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Abstract

This essay presents a new theory of statutory application that is superior to two competitors. One of the competitors claims that statutory directives apply to act-tokens fitting the legislature's intention. The other holds that statutes apply to act-tokens that are of the genuine kinds named by the classifying words. These theories solve certain problems badly or not at all, respectively: (1) accounting for the capacity of statutes for epistemic guidance; and (2) avoiding literalism. Both do a limited job of accounting for the rationality of statutory promulgation. The theory developed here, social salience theory, does better on all counts. According to social salience theory, the default position is that statutes apply to act-tokens that are socially salient, given the linguistic and social contexts. The departure from that position is also social, produced by conventions to defer to experts on the statute's applications to particular cases.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
Legal Theory , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 2006 , pp. 71 - 112
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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