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Exploring the Notion of Necessity in Essentialist Legal Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2022

Ziyu Liu
Ziyu Liu*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge Faculty of Law, Cambridge, UK
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Abstract

Essentialist legal theorists, represented by Raz, have depicted legal theory as a project of seeking necessary truths about law. They have, however, left the notion of necessity in their conception of legal theory largely unexplained. This paper explores four different notions of necessity in the philosophical literature and investigates two issues: first, what kind of necessity best fits the notion of necessity implicit in the essentialist conception of legal theory, and secondly, whether that notion of necessity is a coherent one that withstands philosophical challenges. I argue that the Putnamian notion of quasi-necessity best fits essentialist legal theorists’ self-understanding, but the notion of quasi-necessity does not withstand Ebbs’s two challenges. Meanwhile, although Plunkett’s theory of metalinguistic negotiation can be used to preserve a coherent notion of necessity that circumvents Ebbs’s two challenges, due to its broadly anti-essentialist underpinnings such a notion is unlikely to be congenial to essentialist legal theorists.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , August 2022 , pp. 427 - 458
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022

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References

1. Julie Dickson, Evaluation and Legal Theory (Hart, 2001) at 17.

2. Ibid.

3. See Robert Alexy, “On the Concept and the Nature of Law” (2008) 21:3 Ratio Juris 281 at 281.

4. See John Gardner, Law as a Leap of Faith: Essays on Law in General (Oxford University Press, 2012) at 270.

5. See Jules Coleman, “Incorporationism, Conventionality, and the Practical Difference Thesis” (1998) 4:4 Leg Theory 381 at 393 n 24.

6. See Scott Shapiro, Legality (Harvard University Press, 2011) at 9.

7. See Joseph Raz, Between Authority and Interpretation: On the Theory of Law and Practical Reason (Oxford University Press, 2010) at 24 [Raz, Between Authority].

8. Ibid at 25.

9. Ibid at 92.

10. Ibid .

11. Ibid at 91.

12. See e.g. Brian Leiter, “The Middle Way” (1995) 1:1 Leg Theory 21; Jules Coleman, “Truth and Objectivity in Law” (1995) 1:1 Leg Theory 33; Matthew Kramer, Objectivity and the Rule of Law (Cambridge University Press, 2007); Timothy Endicott, Vagueness in Law (Oxford University Press, 2000); Andrei Marmor, Positive Law and Objective Values (Clarendon Press, 2001); Kent Greenawalt, Law and Objectivity (Oxford University Press, 1992).

13. For recent discussions see Danny Priel, “Jurisprudence and Necessity” (2007) 20:1 Can JL & Jur 173; Michael Giudice, Understanding the Nature of Law: A Case for Constructive Conceptual Explanation (Edward Elgar, 2015) at ch 4; Yi Tong, “On the Nature of Necessary Truths in Jurisprudence: Putting Wittgensteinian Hinges to Use” (2021) 34:1 Can JL & Jur 203.

14. See Scott Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century (Princeton University Press, 2003) at 263-64.

15. Kenneth Einar Himma, “Reconsidering a Dogma: Conceptual Analysis, the Naturalistic Turn, and Legal Philosophy” in Michael Freeman & Ross Harrison, eds, Law and Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2007) 3 at 13.

16. See Willard Van Orman Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” in Willard Van Orman Quine, From a Logical Point of View, 2d ed (Harvard University Press, 1980) 20 at 23.

17. Ibid at 43.

18. Ibid.

19. For a discussion on Quine’s doctrine of confirmation holism as applied to the context of analytic jurisprudence, see Jules Coleman, “Methodology” in Jules Coleman & Scott Shapiro, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law (Oxford University Press, 2004) 312.

20. See HP Grice & PF Strawson, “In Defense of a Dogma” (1956) 65:2 The Philosophical Review 141.

21. Brian Leiter, “Beyond the Hart/Dworkin Debate: The Methodology Problem in Jurisprudence” (2003) 48:1 Am J Juris 17 at 44 [Leiter, “Beyond the Hart/Dworkin Debate”].

22. Coleman, “Methodology”, supra note 19 at 350.

23. Ibid at 345.

24. Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence, eds, Concepts: Core Readings (MIT Press, 1999) at 9.

25. See Raz, Between Authority, supra note 7 at 12.

26. Ibid at 29.

27. Ibid at 19.

28. Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Harvard University Press, 1980) at 27.

29. Ibid at 62.

30. Ibid at 91-92.

31. Ibid at 48-49.

32. Ibid at 134-36.

33. See Hilary Putnam, “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” in Hilary Putnam, Mind, Language, and Reality (Cambridge University Press, 1975) 215.

34. Ibid .

35. See Tuomas E Tahko, “Natural Kind Essentialism Revisited” (2015) 124:495 Mind 795.

36. See Raz, Between Authority, supra note 7 at 27.

37. See Shapiro, supra note 6 at 9.

38. See Giudice, supra note 13 at 104.

39. Ibid .

40. Brian Z Tamanaha, A Realistic Theory of Law (Cambridge University Press, 2017) at 59.

41. Giudice, supra note 13 at 105.

42. See Hilary Kornblith, Knowledge and Its Place in Nature (Clarendon Press, 2005).

43. Hilary Kornblith, “A Naturalistic Methodology” in Giuseppina D’Oro & Søren Overgaard, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology (Cambridge University Press, 2017) 141 at 151.

44. Ibid .

45. Ibid .

46. Ibid .

47. See Michael Moore, Educating Oneself in Public: Critical Essays in Jurisprudence (Oxford University Press, 2000).

48. See John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, 2d ed (Oxford University Press, 2011).

49. See Hilary Putnam, Realism with a Human Face, James Conant, ed (Harvard University Press, 1990) at 66 [Putnam, Realism].

50. Kripke, supra note 28 at 44 [emphasis in original].

51. Ibid at 49.

52. See Bob Hale, “Putnam’s Retreat: Some Reflections on Hilary Putnam’s Changing Views about Metaphysical Necessity” (2004) 28:1 Midwest Studies in Philosophy 351 at 363 [Hale, “Putnam’s Retreat”].

53. Ibid at 362.

54. Kripke, supra note 28 at 138.

55. See Hale, “Putnam’s Retreat”, supra note 52 at 366.

56. Putnam, Realism, supra note 49 at 66.

57. See Kripke, supra note 28 at 113-14.

58. Ibid at 114 [emphasis in original].

59. Putnam, Realism, supra note 49 at 67.

60. Ibid .

61. Ibid at 65.

62. Hale, “Putnam’s Retreat”, supra note 52 at 364.

63. Ibid .

64. Ibid .

65. Ibid .

66. Putnam, Realism, supra note 49 at 68 [emphasis in original].

67. Ibid .

68. Ibid .

69. Ibid .

70. Ibid at 69.

71. Ibid at 64 [emphasis in original].

72. Ibid .

73. See Tahko, supra note 35 at 796.

74. For a recent defense of metaphysical necessity see Bob Hale, Necessary Beings: An Essay on Ontology, Modality, and the Relations Between Them (Oxford University Press, 2013).

75. See Hale, “Putnam’s Retreat”, supra note 52 at 363.

76. Ibid at 366.

77. Jerry Fodor, “Water’s Water Everywhere” (2004) 26:20 London Review of Books, online: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v26/n20/jerry-fodor/water-s-water-everywhere.

78. Ibid .

79. Ibid .

80. Hilary Putnam, “It Ain’t Necessarily So” in Hilary Putnam, Mathematics, Matter, and Method, 2d ed (Cambridge University Press, 1979) 237 at 240.

81. Hilary Putnam, Words and Life, ed by James Conant (Harvard University Press, 1996) at 251.

82. See Hilary Putnam, “Two Dogmas Revisited” in Hilary Putnam, Realism and Reason (Cambridge University Press, 1983) 87 at 88-90 [Putnam, “Two Dogmas”].

83. Hilary Putnam, Mind, Language, and Reality (Cambridge University Press, 1975) at 36 [Putnam, Mind, Language, and Reality].

84. Ibid at 46.

85. Putnam, “Two Dogmas”, supra note 82 at 90.

86. Ibid at 87.

87. Putnam, Words and Life, supra note 81 at 250.

88. Putnam, Mind, Language, and Reality, supra note 83 at 46.

89. Ibid at 48.

90. Putnam, “It Ain’t Necessarily So”, supra note 80 at 240 [emphasis in original].

91. Putnam, Mind, Language, and Reality, supra note 83 at 48.

92. Putnam, “It Ain’t Necessarily So”, supra note 80 at 240.

93. Putnam, Mind, Language, and Reality, supra note 83 at xv.

94. Putnam, Words and Life, supra note 81 at 251.

95. Ibid at 250.

96. Ibid .

97. Ibid .

98. Ibid at 251 [emphasis in original].

99. Putnam, “Two Dogmas”, supra note 82 at 96.

100. Ibid .

101. Brian Bix, “Raz on Necessity” (2003) 22:6 Law & Phil 537 at 549.

102. Ibid .

103. Ibid .

104. Raz, Between Authority, supra note 7 at 19.

105. See Coleman, “Methodology”, supra note 19 at 350.

106. Ibid at 344.

107. Ibid at 347.

108. Ibid.

109. Raz, Between Authority, supra note 7 at 18.

110. Ibid at 18-24.

111. Ibid at 31.

112. Ibid at 57.

113. Ibid at 20.

114. Ibid at 31.

115. Ibid .

116. Ibid .

117. See Joseph Raz, Practical Reason and Norms (Princeton University Press, 1990).

118. Raz, Between Authority, supra note 7 at 31.

119. Frank Jackson, From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defence of Conceptual Analysis (Clarendon Press, 2008) at 45.

120. Ibid at ch 2.

121. Spaak has recently attempted a Canberra-style conceptual analysis of law, with the conclusion that such a project is unlikely to be fruitful. See Torben Spaak, “The Canberra Plan and the Nature of Law” in Paweł Banaś, Adam Dyrda, & Tomasz Gizbert-Studnicki, eds, Metaphilosophy of Law (Hart, 2016) 81.

122. Jackson, supra note 119 at 11.

123. Ibid .

124. Raz, Between Authority, supra note 7 at 24.

125. Ibid.

126. For a typology of the mind-independence of law see Kramer, supra note 12 at ch 1.

127. Leiter, “Beyond the Hart/Dworkin Debate”, supra note 21 at 46 [emphasis in original].

128. Raz, Between Authority, supra note 7 at 24.

129. Ibid at 31.

130. Ibid at 55.

131. Ibid .

132. Ibid at 57 [emphasis in original].

133. Ibid at 99.

134. Putnam, Realism, supra note 49 at 67 [emphasis in original].

135. Raz, Between Authority, supra note 7 at 31.

136. Gary Ebbs, “Putnam and the Contextually A Priori” in Randall E Auxier, Douglas R Anderson, & Lewis Edwin Hahn, eds, The Philosophy of Hilary Putnam (Open Court, 2015) 389 at 408 n 3.

137. Ibid at 399.

138. Ibid.

139. Hilary Putnam, “Reply to Gary Ebbs” in Randall E Auxier, Douglas R Anderson, & Lewis Edwin Hahn, eds, The Philosophy of Hilary Putnam (Open Court, 2015) 412 at 415 [emphasis in original] [Putnam, “Reply to Gary Ebbs”].

140. Ibid.

141. Ibid.

142. See e.g. Hilary Putnam, The Many Faces of Realism (Open Court, 1987) at 85.

143. David Macarthur, “Putnam and the Philosophical Appeal to Common Sense” in Maria Baghramian, ed, Reading Putnam (Routledge, 2012) 127 at 129.

144. Ibid at 136.

145. Ibid at 137.

146. Putnam, “Reply to Gary Ebbs”, supra note 139 at 415 [emphasis in original].

147. See Kenneth Einar Himma, “The Authorisation of Coercive Enforcement Mechanisms as a Conceptually Necessary Feature of Law” (2016) 7:3 Jurisprudence 593.

148. See Lon L Fuller, The Morality of Law (Yale University Press, 1978).

149. See Joseph Raz, The Authority of Law: Essays on Law and Morality, 2d ed (Oxford University Press, 2009).

150. See Sean Coyle & George Pavlakos, eds, Jurisprudence or Legal Science? A Debate about the Nature of Legal Theory (Hart, 2005).

151. Brian Leiter, “The Demarcation Problem in Jurisprudence: A New Case for Scepticism” (2011) 31:4 Oxford J Leg Stud 663 at 674 [Leiter, “The Demarcation Problem”].

152. See HLA Hart, The Concept of Law, 2d ed (Oxford University Press, 1994) at 3.

153. This suggestion is compatible with Macarthur’s interpretation of Putnam. Macarthur’s argument against interpreting Putnamian common sense as people’s common beliefs is that Putnam’s purported common sense (i.e., direct realism) is a substantial philosophical doctrine that cannot be plausibly attributed to the common population, which generally does not endorse any particular philosophical doctrine on perception. In contrast, the common-sensical features of law identified by Hart are not substantial philosophical doctrines and can indeed be plausibly attributed to anyone who is reasonably educated. See Macarther, supra note 143.

154. Hart, supra note 152 at 5.

155. See Ebbs, supra note 136 at 402-03.

156. Ibid [emphasis in original].

157. Ibid at 407.

158. Ibid [emphasis in original].

159. Putnam, “Reply to Gary Ebbs”, supra note 139 at 417.

160. Ibid [emphasis in original].

161. Ibid .

162. Ebbs, supra note 136 at 403 [emphasis in original].

163. Ibid [emphasis in original].

164. Putnam, “Reply to Gary Ebbs”, supra note 139 at 417.

165. See Hilary Putnam, “Rethinking Mathematical Necessity” in Hilary Putnam, Words and Life, supra note 81 at 250.

166. Ibid at 262.

167. Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge University Press, 1981) at 52.

168. Putnam, Realism, supra note 49 at 96.

169. Gerald J Postema, Legal Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: The Common Law World (Springer, 2011) at 10.

170. Ibid at 5-13.

171. Ibid at 4.

172. See Tamanaha, supra note 40.

173. See Gerald J Postema, “Jurisprudence, The Sociable Science” (2015) 101:4 Va L Rev 869.

174. Raz, Between Authority, supra note 7 at 31.

175. Ebbs, supra note 136 at 407.

176. Ibid.

177. Ibid.

178. Ibid.

179. See Leiter, “The Demarcation Problem”, supra note 151. See also Ronald Dworkin, “Thirty Years On” (2002) 115:6 Harv L Rev 1655.

180. For comprehensive and insightful expositions see Cheryl Misak, The American Pragmatists (Oxford University Press, 2013); Cheryl Misak, Cambridge Pragmatism: From Peirce and James to Ramsey and Wittgenstein (Oxford University Press, 2016); Cheryl Misak, ed, New Pragmatists (Oxford University Press, 2009).

181. See e.g. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Blackwell, 1999); Richard Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (Cambridge University Press, 1990); Richard Rorty, Truth and Progress (Cambridge University Press, 1999).

182. Huw Price, Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism (Cambridge University Press, 2013) at 43.

183. Robert Brandom, “Vocabularies of Pragmatism: Synthesizing Naturalism and Historicism” in Robert Brandom, ed, Rorty and His Critics (Blackwell, 2000) at 164 [emphasis in original].

184. David Plunkett, “Which Concepts Should We Use?: Metalinguistic Negotiations and The Methodology of Philosophy” (2015) 58:7-8 Inquiry 828 at 832.

185. See David Plunkett & Tim Sundell, “Metalinguistic Negotiation and Speaker Error” (2021) 64:1-2 Inquiry 142 at 150.

186. Plunkett, supra note 184 at 830 [emphasis in original].

187. David Plunkett, “Negotiating the Meaning of ‘Law’: The Metalinguistic Dimension of the Dispute Over Legal Positivism” (2016) 22:3-4 Leg Theory 205 at 210.

188. Ibid at 241.

189. Ibid at 210.

190. See HLA Hart, “Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals” (1958) 71:4 Harv L Rev 593.

191. Ibid at 598, 621.

192. Paul Horwich, Truth, 2d ed (Oxford University Press, 1998) at 5.

193. Ibid.

194. See e.g. Paul Horwich, Wittgenstein’s Metaphilosophy (Clarendon Press, 2012).

195. Hilary Putnam, “From Quantum Mechanics to Ethics and Back Again” in Maria Baghramian, ed, Reading Putnam (Routledge, 2012) 19 at 34.

196. See Dworkin, supra note 179 at 1679.

197. See Thomas Bustamante & Thiago Lopes Decat, eds, Philosophy of Law as an Integral Part of Philosophy: Essays on the Jurisprudence of Gerald J Postema (Hart, 2020).