Metatheory and Ontology for Legal Doctrine

Abstract

A theory of legal doctrine was previously outlined based on a wide reflective equilibrium centred on platitudes. But a critic may ask whether a doctrine of this kind—containing normative components—can lay a claim to truth. For example, can a legal interpretive statement—supported by a weighing of moral arguments—be true even if it can be justified only by a set of premises containing evaluations? Here we will turn to a more abstract problem than that discussed between relativists and objectivists in moral theory. Relativists and objectivists can both be cognitivists. Relativists can claim truth but this is a relative truth, the truth within a framework. Objectivists can claim the truth which is independent of a framework (if any such thing is possible). Obviously, a relativist can also be a non-cognitivist. A non-cognitivist can be an objectivist only in a rather odd sense, which is by assuming that there are objective values, even if no one can ever utter a truth-evaluated sentence about them.