Francisco J. Urbina (Notre Dame Law School) has posted Meta-Interpretive Questions and the Aims of Theories of Interpretation: Beyond the Remedial Answer on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This invited Response to Bill Watson’s “What Are We Debating When We Debate Legal Interpretation?” examines the point and purpose of interpretive theories. Watson argues that theories of interpretation are about how legal actors should exercise discretion when the law runs out. The Response builds on Watson’s sophisticated conceptual framework to explain that interpretive theories can be about at least two other topics. They can be about the most normatively appealing way of operating with sources—whether this tracks legal content or not—and they can be about which criteria for identifying something as law the legal community should adopt.
Highly recommended.