The Nature and Value of Vagueness in the Law

Acknowledgements
Contents
Introduction
	The Structure of the Book
1. Authority, Communication and Legal Content
	I. The Communicative-Content Theory of Law and Its (Recent) Critics
	II. The Pro Tanto View about Legal Content
	III. Authority, Communication and Legal Content
2. On the Instrumental Value of Vagueness in the Law
	I. Incommensurate Multidimensionality, Extravagant Vagueness and Endicott\'s Argument from Instrumental Necessity
	II. Incommensurate Multidimensionality is Doing the Real Work
	III. The Impossibility of Specification
	IV. Are Incommensurate Multidimensionality and – Hence – Vagueness Really Necessary?
	V. Waldron\'s Argument from Facilitation
	VI. Possible Reply: Vagueness Really is a Means to the Relevant Ends
	VII. Another Possible Reply: The Logic of Value Validates Closure under Necessary Consequence
3. Vagueness and Power Delegation in Law
	I. Sorensen\'s View
	II. The Value of Vagueness
	III. Summary
4. Vagueness, Uncertainty and Behaviour
	I. Endicott\'s Argument from Comparative Value
	II. Hadfield on the Value of Vagueness-related Uncertainty
	III. Sorensen on Vagueness-related Uncertainty and Legal Unpredictability
5. On the Possibility of Non-literal Legislative Speech
	I. The Conditions for Non-literal Speech and the Legislative Context
	II. Revising the Argument: Restrict, Reconstruct, or Both?
	III. Testing the Argument against Experience: Ekins\'s Argument from Examples
	IV. Indeterminacy about Utterance Content
6. Textualism, Content and Interpretation
	I. Textualism and Legislative Intentions
	II. Textualism, Communicative Content and Legal Content
	III. Textualism/Originalism and Contextual Enrichment
	IV. On the Plausibility of Conception Textualism
	V. Contemporary Textualism and the Problem of Legislative Context
	VI. Textualism and Legal Interpretation
7. Resolving Cases of Vagueness
	I. Expressly Offered Rationale and the Notion of Commitment
	II. Institutional Remedies to Non-co-operation
	III. Is Expression Required?
	IV. Commitment and Counterfactuals
	V. Legislative Rationale and Levels of Abstraction
	VI. Authority, Legislative Bargaining and Maximising Fidelity to Law
	VII. Expressly Acknowledged Compromise vs Tacitly Acknowledged Compromise
	VIII. Conclusion
8. Legal Practice and Theories of Vagueness
	I. Explaining the Value of Vagueness in the Law
	II. A Closer Look at Soames\'s Argument
	III. Generalising the Argument: Other Cautionary Tales
Bibliography
Index