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The problem of indeterminacy in law has been the subject of interesting debate for many years now. Pitched against each other in the controversy are Hart, Dworkin, Benditt, American Realist jurisprudence and recent exponents of Critical Legal Studies (C.L.S.). Interesting as the controversy is, it is not as ordinary as our most casual statements seem to suggest, especially if the implications and outcomes necessitated by the existence of legal indeterminacy are examined rather than the concentration on ideologies and perspectives. To consider these implications and outcomes in detail, it is important to develop a generalised overview within which more detailed inquiries may find their context. Thus, in this paper, I shall first, examine indeterminacy as a concept per se. I shall then examine a selection of general arguments for and against legal indeterminacy and elucidate what is critically involved in these claims and in their denials. I do hope, at least, to give an idea of the difficulties we meet when we try to get our ideas clear on it and to show how any solution of the problem (if it is soluble at all) is closely connected with other problems in language and politics.
The topic of this paper is indeterminacy in law.
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- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1988
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