Legal Theory Lexicon
-
By Lawrence B. Solum Link to the Most Recent Version of this Lexicon Entry Legal Theory Lexicon 110: Soundness and Validity in Legal Argumentation Introduction Legal arguments come in many forms. Lawyers argue from precedent, from statutory text, from policy considerations, and from moral principles. But underlying these diverse forms of legal argument are basic
-
Law students quickly discover that some of the most important legal texts are old. The United States Constitution was written in 1787. Many of the doctrines that organize the common law took shape centuries earlier. Important statutes—the Statute of Frauds, for example—date from the seventeenth century. To work with these texts, lawyers and judges have
-
The Legal Theory Lexicon has a new entry: Legal Theory Lexicon 108: Epistemic Injustice The concept of epistemic injustice — developed by Miranda Fricker and extended by Kristie Dotson, José Medina, Gaile Pohlhaus Jr., Alison Bailey, and others — provides a powerful lens for examining the ways in which people can be wronged in their
-
Every lawyer who has interpreted a statute or a constitutional provision has encountered the hermeneutic circle, even if they have never heard the name. The problem is this: to understand a legal text, you must understand its parts; but to understand its parts, you must already have some grasp of the whole. A single statutory
-
Introduction Legal theorists routinely invoke the idea that legitimate law must emerge from something like a fair deliberative process — one in which reasons are exchanged, positions are tested, and outcomes reflect genuine agreement rather than mere coercion or strategic manipulation. That intuition needs a theoretical foundation. The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has developed a
-
Introduction H.L.A. Hart’s The Concept of Law, first published in 1961, is widely regarded as the most important work of legal philosophy in the twentieth century. Among its many contributions, none is more central than the idea of the rule of recognition — a master rule that specifies the criteria by which a society identifies
-
You can access the Legal Theory Lexicon from the Menu of the Legal Theory Blog, which is located in the upper left corner–next to Aristotle’s head. Or you can use the following direct link: https://legaltheorylexicon.com/ The Legal Theory Lexicon has been updated to make it more useable in two ways. First, the Table of Contents
-
By Lawrence B. Solum Introduction Legal theories differ not just in their substantive claims but also in their conceptual structure—in the way they organize and deploy theoretical concepts. One interesting way to think about conceptual structure focuses on the number of foundational concepts a theory uses to explain its subject matter. Monist legal theories seek
-
By Lawrence B. Solum Introduction The concept of democrary is clearly one of the most important ideas in normative legal theory in general and normative constitutional theory in particular. Alexander Bickel’s discussion of a “counter-majoritarian difficulty” is just one of many places where legal arguments rely on the concept of democracy. This Lexicon entry explores
-
By Lawrence Solum Introduction The law frequently deploys the idea that actions, events, and communications have motives, purposes, or functions. Consider the following list of questions: This Lexicon entry explores an important distinction between subjective motivations, on the one hand, and objective functions, on the other. These concepts are deployed in a wide variety of