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Interpretation without Truth pp 255–266Cite as

Legislation

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Part of the book series: Law and Philosophy Library ((LAPS,volume 128))

Abstract

The chapter purports to cast some light on the basic ideas of the realistic theory of legislation. It will be, accordingly, a place for rehearsing many of the theoretical theses advanced, and argued for, in the preceding chapters.

Here, then, in the very cradle of legislative empire grew up another power, in words the instrument of the former, in reality continually its censor and not infrequently its successful rival

—J. Bentham (1977)

The conscientious, intelligent judge will consider government a sort of orchestra, in which, in symphonies authorized by the people, the courts and the legislature each play their parts

—J. Frank (1949a)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See, e.g, Bentham (1789); Filangieri (1780–1785). On juridical Enlightenment, see e.g. Tarello (1976), Comanducci (1978), pp. 7–24; Postema (1986), parts II and III; Lieberman (1989), chs. 2, 13.

  2. 2.

    Waldron (1999b), at 1, 2, we read: “legislation and legislatures have a bad name in legal and political philosophy, a name sufficiently disreputable to cast doubt on their credentials as respectable sources of law […] I want us to see the process of legislation – at its best – as something like the following: the representatives of the community come together to settle solemnly and explicitly on common schemes and measures that can stand in the name of them all, and they do so in a way that openly acknowledges and respects […] the inevitable differences of opinion and principle among them”; Waldron (1999a), part I.

  3. 3.

    See, e.g.: Wintgens (2002), including essays by L. Wintgens, L. D. Eriksson, K. Pietilä, S. Eng, C. Dahlman, H. Tolonen, K. Tuori, A. Verhoeven, W. Voermans, and H. Winter; Wintgens (2006), pp. 1–25; Wintgens (2012), p. 7: “Current legal theory is premised on the central role of the judge in contemporary legal systems. Although this evolution has contributed much to a vibrant understanding of law, it has also left the role of the legislator largely ignored and under-theorised. Legal theory routinely takes the law as ‘just there’, and limits its theoretical undertakings to law as a ‘given’. Law, it claims, is the result of political decision-making. But once law comes into force, it can be somehow miraculously separated from politics. And the realm of politics is impure – unlike law’s ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’ methods of reasoning and decision-making”. It goes without saying that legisprudence à la Wintgens is a normative enterprise: starting from the Kantian premise of individuals’ moral autonomy and freedom, it purports to establish the right principles of legislation and, on the basis thereof, the duties legislatures ought to fulfil to be legitimate.

  4. 4.

    Cohen (1949–1950), pp. 886–897. According to the Black’s Law Dictionary, 7th ed., “Legisprudence” is “The systematic analysis of statutes within the framework of jurisprudential philosophies about the role and nature of law”.

  5. 5.

    Waldron and Wintgens seem to be aware of legal realism, so far as statutory interpretation is concerned. See e.g. Waldron (1999b), p. 10; Wintgens (2006), p. 21 ss. However, as we will see later on (Sect. 11.4 below), Waldron apparently resists to a full endorsing of realism.

  6. 6.

    See Waldron (1999b), ch. 2.

  7. 7.

    See, e.g., Holmes (1897), p. 457 ff.; Frank (1930), Llewellyn (1930, 1931), Kelsen (1945), p. 123 ff.; Ross (1946, 1958), Tarello (1962), Castignone (1974), Olivecrona (1971), Twining (1985), Leiter (2007), Part I; Millard (2008), pp. 177–189; Guastini (2011b), pp. 138–161; Llewellyn (2011). On philosophical legal realism, see also Chap. 1, Sect. 1.1, above.

  8. 8.

    In its more encompassing meaning, “legislation” refers to the whole domain of the so-called written law (ius scriptum), i.e., the law provided with an authoritative, fixed, formulation, as opposed to unwritten law (ius non scriptum), like background implicit principles and the rationes decidendi making up the reservoir of judicial precedents (on which, see Chap. 9, Sect. 9.3, above). Here, I will leave this larger meaning aside, focussing instead on the stricter meaning considered in the text.

  9. 9.

    For the present reconstruction of the realistic theory of legislation I considered the following works: Bentham (2010), p. 161ff., 169ff., 174ff., 227 ff.; Bentham (1977), p. 89 ff., 137 ff.; Austin (1885), p. 525 ff., 620 ff., 989 ff., 1028 ff.; Gray (1909), p. 145 ff.; Frank (1930), p. 186 ff., 310–311; Radin (1930), p. 863 ff.; Cohen (1933), p. 230 ff.; Kelsen (1941), p. 271 ff.; Kelsen (1945), p. 134 ff.; Frank (1949b), pp. 290–291, 292 ff.; Ross (1958), chs. III and IV; Kelsen (1960), chs. V and VIII; Llewellyn (1960), p. 521 ff.; Tarello (1980), chs. II and VIII; Troper (2003), pp. 98–112; Dworkin (1986), ch. 1–3, 9; Eskridge and Frickey (1998), p. 240 ff., 569 ff.; Chiassoni (1999a), p. 21 ff.; Chiassoni (2011), ch. 2; Dworkin (2011), Part II; Llewellyn (2011), p. 119 ff.; Guastini (2011a), Parts I and V. See also Chaps. 3, 4, and 5 above.

  10. 10.

    Autocratic legislators in fact can make known their mind about the “proper” meaning of their statutes by means, say, of declarations accompanying the enacted text, or released through other channels of institutional communication.

  11. 11.

    See Chap. 5, Sects. 5.2 and 5.4 above.

  12. 12.

    Waldron (1999b), p. 27.

  13. 13.

    On the Gricean picture of ordinary conversation see Chap. 3, Sect. 3.5 above.

  14. 14.

    See the complementary remarks below. See also Chap. 5, Sects. 5.2 and 5.4 above.

  15. 15.

    See Chap. 5, Sect. 5.2, and Chap. 10, Sect. 10.2.2, above.

  16. 16.

    By the way, the thesis is in turn a specification of the more sweeping thesis about the general indeterminacy, in Kelsenian terms, of any ‘superior norm’ whatsoever. See, e.g., Kelsen (1960), ch. VIII.

  17. 17.

    On legal indeterminacy, see also Chap. 10, Sect. 10.2 above.

  18. 18.

    See Chap. 5, Sect. 5.2, above.

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  1. Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza, Università di Genova, Genova, Italy

    Pierluigi Chiassoni

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Chiassoni, P. (2019). Legislation. In: Interpretation without Truth. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 128. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15590-2_11

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