Abstract
The ad absurdum argument can be understood either as a strictly logical tool, which is equivalent to a proof by contradiction, or as a pragmatic argument about the desirability or undesirability of a given proposition. Yet, in legal reasoning lawyers tend to use it, at least in the vast majority of cases, only in the latter sense. The argumentum ad absurdum, as I will argue, can be classified as a special kind of pragmatic argument whose specific feature is its special argumentative strength in comparison with generic consequentialist argumentation. Once we are able to grant that premise, the paper intends to explain the most important rules of interpretation that may be used to determine the conditions under which the ad absurdum argument can be correctly deployed in legal reasoning.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Wróblewski distinguishes, in a famous paper, two stages of justification of a legal syllogism. While the internal justification is strictly logical and refers to the relation between the premises of an argument form, the external justification is not a logical process and consists in the justification of the premises themselves, on the basis of pragmatic or empirical considerations (Wróblewski 1974, p. 39).
- 2.
The River Wear Commissoners v William Adamson and Others. [1876–77] L.R. 2 App. Cas. 743, at 764–765. The Golden Rule of statutory interpretation was originally stated by Lord Wensleydale in Becke v Smith [1836] 2 M. &W. 195 and restated with more precision in Grey v. Pearson [1857] 6 HL Cas 61, 106; 10 ER 1216.
- 3.
Henningsten v. Bloomfield Motors, Inc. 32 N. J. 358, 161 A.2d [1960].
- 4.
If MacCormick is correct, then a consequentialist argumentation in law involves two stages. At the first stage, one must establish a factual premise stating that the course of action considered by the speaker implies the consequence C. Then, at the second stage, one must subsume C under a universal norm that is said to be part of the legal system. The argument is reliable only if the speaker can prove that C is prohibited by that norm.
- 5.
For a powerful argument against the account of legal consequentialism proposed by Dewey, who speaks about a “logic of consequences being a logic of probabilities rather than certainties”, see MacCormick (1983, p. 251), where he claims that only hypothetical consequences seem to be relevant in legal argumentation.
- 6.
As Jansen explains, “the difference between the Argument from Consequences and the RAA concerns the kind of consequences that are being appealed to: causally induced consequences in the Argument from Consequences and logically implied consequences in the RAA” (Jansen 2007, p. 250). If we take up the scheme that Alexy uses to describe the structure of the reductio ad absurdum in legal reasoning (when he states: (1) O \( \neg \) Z; (2) R′ → Z ; (3) \( \neg \) R′), we can see clearly that he distinction between the reductio ad absurdum and the generic argument from consequences lies only in the second premise (2). While in the RAA there is a strict logical implication between R’ and Z, in a generic argument from consequences this is not the case.
- 7.
- 8.
As the author explains, a vitium was a consequence absurd, against equity (aequitas), or contradictory (Reggi 1974, p. 363).
- 9.
Associated Provincial Picture Houses, Limited v Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 K.B 223, at 229, per Lord Greene, M.R. (Court of Appeal).
- 10.
In this sense, Searle and Vanderveken classify an illocution as self-defeating when “its conditions of success cannot possibly obtain” (Searle and Vanderveken 1985, p. 151). For these authors, “since a set of illocutionary acts is consistent if it is performable, no self-defeating illocutionary act is consistent” (Searle and Vanderveken 1985, p. 151).
- 11.
According to Alexy, at the core of the claim to correctness there would be: (1) The assertion that the legal act is substantially and procedurally correct; (2) The claim (which generates a guarantee) of justifiability of this assertion; and (3) The expectation of acceptance of correctness by all addressees of the legal norm (Alexy 1998, p. 208). Furthermore, he argues that the claim to correctness is not only a moral claim, but also a legal claim. And this legal claim “corresponds with a legal obligation necessarily connected with judicial judgments to hand down correct decisions” (Alexy 1998, p. 216).
- 12.
According to Alexy, his examples “show that participants in a legal system necessarily, on all sorts of levels, lay claim to correctness (Alexy 2003, p. 39).”
- 13.
For a complete description of the many kinds of performative contradictions in norm-enacting speech acts and a defence of Alexy’s thesis of the claim to correctness, see Rotolo and Roversi (2009).
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
Marbury v. Madison 5 US (1 Cranch) 137 (1803), p. 178.
- 17.
BVerfGE 3, 58 (119); 6, 132 (198). I quote the example from Alexy (1999b), whose translation was used above. Alexy quotes the example in defence of Radbruch’s Formula, who asserts that a statute loses its legal validity whenever it expressly disavows the idea of justice or reaches an intolerable degree of substantive injustice. On Radbruch’s arguments, see Radbruch (2006), Paulson (2006) and Alexy (1999b, 2003).
- 18.
Alexy obviously presents this argument as a criticism against positivism. Nevertheless, a positivist would normally claim that it is wrong to conclude that the argument from injustice works in legal adjudication only if you dismiss positivism. In Hart’s debates with Radbruch on the validity of Nazi Laws, for instance, he makes it very clear that positivism is merely a theory about legal validity, ant not a theory about how difficult cases should be decided. For Hart it would be perfectly possible to decide cases involving Nazi legislation without dismissing positivism, as long as retrospective effects were attributed to the post-war legislation (Hart 1977).
- 19.
See D.18,3,2–3 (Pomponius). Classifying this reasoning as an instance of the reductio ad absurdum, see Wacke (2008, pp. 456–457).
- 20.
Grey v. Pearson [1857] 6 HL Cas 61, 106; 10 ER 1216, 1234.
- 21.
By referring to MacCormick and Summers’ classification of interpretative arguments – see note below – Kloosterhuis holds that the ad absurdum argument may express on the one hand a systematic argument that involves a “contradiction or inconsistency between a proposed interpretation of a rule of law and an undisputed, generally accepted legal interpretation or assumption” (Kloosterhuis 2007, p. 72), or, on the other hand, an argument from substantive reasons in which the strength of the argumentation “does not depend on the authoritativeness that the reasons may have” (Kloosterhuis 2007, p. 73). The former is called the strict sense of the argumentum ad absurdum, while the latter the broad sense of that argument.
- 22.
The eleven argument types proposed by MacCormick and Summers (1991, pp. 512–516) are these: (1) Linguistic Arguments: (i) argument from the ordinary meaning and (ii) argument from technical meaning; (2) Systemic Arguments: (iii) argument from contextual-harmonization, (iv) argument from precedent, (v) argument from analogy, (vi) logical-conceptual argument, (vii) argument from the general principles of law and (viii) argument from history; (3) Teleological/Evaluative Arguments: (ix) argument from purpose and (x) argument from substantive reasons; (4) Transcategorial Argument: (xi) argument from intention.
- 23.
The difference between the ad absurdum argument in this sense and the strictly logical version of the argument, analysed above (see supra, n. 1) is that while the latter presupposes an internal contradiction of the speaker, the former applies when the proposed interpretation is not consistent with another norm belonging to the legal system.
- 24.
In the same sense, see Bobbio (1971, pp. 244–245) and Lazzaro (1970, p. 96). The difference between Kloosterhuis’ use of the argumentum ad absurdum and the strictly logical version of the reductio ad absurdum is that in the former the norm which contradicts the proposed interpretation is not a premise adopted by the speaker, so there is no “internal contradiction” in the reasoning under consideration.
- 25.
STF, Pleno, RE 543974/MG, Rel. Min. Eros Grau, j. 26/03/2009, p. DJe-099, 28/05/2009.
- 26.
Maclennan v. Maclennan (1958) S. C. 105, per Lord Wheatley.
- 27.
(1958) S. C., at 114.
References
Alexy, Robert. 1989. A theory of legal argumentation. Oxford: Clarendon.
Alexy, Robert. 1998. Law and correctness. Current Legal Problems 51: 205–221.
Alexy, Robert. 1999a. A defence of Radbruch’s formula. In Recrafting the rule of law: The limits of the legal order, ed. David Dyzenhaus, 15–39. Oxford: Hart Publishing.
Alexy, Robert. 1999b. The special case thesis. Ratio Juris 12: 374–384.
Alexy, Robert. 2000. On the thesis of a necessary connection between law and morality: Bulygin’s critique. Ratio Juris 13: 138–147.
Alexy, Robert. 2003. The argument from injustice: A reply to legal positivism (trans: Bonnie L. Paulson and Stanley L. Paulson). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bobbio, Norberto. 1971. Le bon législateur. In Le Raisonnement juridique – Actes du Congrés Mondial de Philosophie du Droit et de Philosophie Sociale, ed. Hubert Hubien. Brussels: Bruylant.
Capone, Piera. 1997. Valore ed uso giurisprudenziale di absurdus/e. Studia et documenta historiae et iuris 63: 197–257.
Daube, David. 1969. Reductio ad absurdum. In Roman law: Linguistic, social and philosophical aspects (The Gray Lectures 1966), 176–194. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Dworkin, Ronald. 1978. Taking rights seriously, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Dworkin, Ronald. 2002. Sovereign virtue: Theory and practice of equality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Ezquiaga, Francisco Javier. 1994. Argumentos interpretativos y postulado del legislador racional. Isonomía 1: 69–98.
Feteris, Eveline. 2005. The rational reconstruction of argumentation referring to consequences and purposes in the application of legal rules: A pragma-dialectical perspective. Argumentation 19: 459–470.
Golding, Martin. 2001. Legal reasoning. Toronto: Encore.
Guastini, Riccardo. 2004. L’Interpretazione dei documenti normativi. Milan: Giuffrè.
Hart, H.L.A. 1977. Positivism and the separation of law and morals. In The philosophy of law, ed. Dworkin Ronald, 17–37. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Iguartua Salaverría, Juan. 1990. El postulado del legislador racional. Revista Vasca de Administración Pública 28: 113–125.
Jansen, Henrike. 2007. Refuting a standpoint by appealing to its outcomes: Reductio ad absurdum vs Argument from Consequences. Informal Logic 27: 249–266.
Kloosterhuis, Harm. 2007. Ad absurdum arguments in legal decisions. In Logic, argumentation and interpretation – Proceedings of the 22nd IVR World Congress Granada 2005, vol. V, ed. Josep Aguiló-Regla, 68–74. ARSP-Beihet 110.
Klug, Ulrich. 1990. Lógica Jurídica (trans: Gardella, J.C.). Bogotá: Temis.
Lazzaro, Giorgio. 1970. Argomenti dei giudici – Estratto dai lavori della ricerca sulla “Argomentazione Giuridica” patrocinata dal C.N.R. Turim: Emilio Bono.
La Torre, Massimo, Enrico Pattaro, and Michele Taruffo. 1991. Statutory interpretation in Italy. In Interpreting statutes – A comparative study, ed. Neil MacCormick and Robert Summers, 213–256. Aldershot: Dartmouth.
Long, George. 1870. Commissaria lex. In Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities, ed. Sir. William Smith, 340. Boston: C. Little and J. Brown. There is a scanned online edition at http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-dgra/index.html. Consulted on 28 July 2011.
MacCormick, Neil. 1983. On legal decisions and their consequences: From Dewey to Dworkin. New York University Law Review 58: 239–258.
MacCormick, Neil. 2005. Rhetoric and the rule of law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
MacCormick, Neil, and Robert Summers. 1991. Interpretation and justification. In Interpreting statutes – A comparative study, ed. Neil MacCormick and Robert Summers, 511–544. Aldershot: Dartmouth.
Maximiliano, Carlos. 1992. Hermenêutica e Aplicação do Direito, 12th ed. Rio de Janeiro: Forense.
Nino, Carlos Santiago. 1989. El modelo dogmático del legislador racional. In Consideraciones sobre la dogmática jurídica (con referencia particular a la dogmática penal), ed. Carlos Santiago Nino, 85–110. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico.
Nowak, Leszek. 1969. De la rationalité du législateur comme élément de l’interprétation juridique. In Études de Logique Juridique, vol. III, ed. Chaïm Perelman, 65–86. Brussels: Bruylant.
Nowak, Leszek. 1987. A concept of rational legislator. In Polish contributions to the theory and philosophy of law, ed. Zygmunt Ziembinski, 137–145. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Paulson, Stanley L. 2006. On the background and significance of Gustav Radbruch’s post-war papers. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 26: 17–40.
Perelman, Chaïm. 1978. Le raisonnable et le déraisonnable en droit. Archives de Philosophie du Droit 23: 35–42.
Radbruch, Gustav. 2006. Statutory lawlessness and supra-statutory law (trans: Paulson, Stanley L. and Paulson, Bonnie L.). Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 26: 1–11.
Raz, Joseph. 2009. The authority of law, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reggi, Roberto. 1974. L’argomentazione per assurdo e Celso Figlio. In Studi in onore di Giuseppe Grosso, 145–172. Turim: Giappichelli.
Rescher, Nicholas. 2005. Reductio ad absurdum. In The internet encyclopedia of philosophy. Available at http://www.iep.utm.edu/reductio. Accessed on 28 July 2011.
Rotolo, Antonino, and Corrado Roversi. 2009. Norm enactment and performative contradictions. Ratio Juris 22: 455–482.
Ryle, Gilbert. 1945. Philosophical arguments. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Searle, John R., and Daniel Vanderveken. 1985. Foundations of illocutionary logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Slapper, Gary, and David Kelly. 2006. The English legal system. Oxon: Routledge-Cavendish.
Tarello, Giovanni. 1980. L’Interpretazione della Legge. Milan: Giuffrè.
Tomassi, Paul. 1999. Logic, 8th ed. London: Routledge.
Wacke, Andreas. 2008. La consideración de las consecuencias de las decisiones jurídicas mediante deductio ad absurdum (en Derecho romano y en derecho moderno). Seminarios Complutenses de Derecho Romano 20–21: 451–480.
Wróblewski, Jerzy. 1974. Legal syllogism and rationality of judicial decisions. Rechtstheorie 5: 33–46.
Ziembinski, Zygmunt. 1978. La notion de rationalité du législateur. Archives de Philosophie du Droit 23: 175–187.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Carlos Bernal Pulido, Matyas Bodig, Christian Dahlman, Eveline Feteris, Antonino Rotolo, Humberto Ávila and Henrike Jansen for the helpful comments and suggestions on a previous draft of this paper. Furthermore, he is indebted to the Foundation for the Development of the Research of the State of Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG – Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais), for funding part of the research that led to this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bustamante, T. (2013). On the Argumentum ad Absurdum in Statutory Interpretation: Its Uses and Normative Significance. In: Dahlman, C., Feteris, E. (eds) Legal Argumentation Theory: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 102. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4670-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4670-1_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-4669-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-4670-1
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawLaw and Criminology (R0)