Describing Law

Abstract

Legal philosophers make a number of bold, contentious claims about the nature of law. For instance, some claim that law necessarily involves coercion, while others disagree. Some claim that all law enjoys presumptive moral validity, while others disagree. We can see these claims in at least three ways: (1) We can see them as descriptions of law’s nature (descriptivism), (2) we can see them as expressing non-descriptive attitudes of the legal philosophers in question (expressivism), or (3) we can see them as claims that must be assessed on the basis of practical reasons (pragmatism). Ultimately, this paper argues that we should understand these claims in the pragmatist way; as such, jurisprudential claims are about what to do, e.g., what to treat as law and how to order society.

Keywords: Jurisprudence, jurisprudential methodology, pragmatism, expressivism, description, natural kinds, philosophy of language