Obligations and the Legal Point of View

Abstract

It's uncontroversial that politics shapes the law. The tough question is how exactly that works: which kinds of political action have a law-shaping effect and how they produce that effect. Consider the enactment of a statute. A. Which precise aspect of the action is relevant to the legal impact of the enactment (the change in legal rights and obligations that obtains without further such action)? B. Why - what gives some aspect of the action its legal relevance? Analogous questions also arise in connection with the explanation of some other phenomena, including making a promise, decision or request - actions or attitudes which are generally understood to result in some distinctive obligations or to have some other distinctive normative significance or impact, or at least to be capable of so doing. The relevant theoretical choices are posed particularly clearly in these domains, so I explore them in some detail in relation to promising.

Keywords: jurisprudence, obligation, conceptual analysis, legal impact