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LukeReillyFirstEssay 4 - 28 Mar 2015 - Main.HenryRoss
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
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| | | With laws, however, it seems there are actually two moments of transformation. The first is what Barthes discusses - the moment at which symbols are rendered - where the lawmaker physically writes the statute or amends it. But isn't there also a second moment - when the statute actually becomes law (in America, when the executive signs it)? To me this second moment is critical, because, unlike other forms, when writing becomes law, it begins to coercively alter people's behavior. So while I'm okay with judges deriving their own subjective meaning from reading "Moby Dick," (because it does not affect me) I think the critical aspect of coercion means that judges should respect the interpretations of others when reading laws (and legislative intent might be one such element).
-- ShayBanerjee - 13 Mar 2015 | |
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I like your application of reader-response theory (or something like it) to judging and statutory interpretation, but I'm not sure I agree with some of your claims. First, do judges really let authorship die when they interpret opinions? Don't they often (sometimes overtly) consider the historical context and intentions of the author? Otherwise, if there is no platonic correctness, what is a judge's "understanding" of an opinion besides what she thinks the law should be? Second, doesn't your argument that we can't rely on legislators to express their unconscious intent lead to the (ironic) conclusion that we shouldn't trust them to distinguish their "holding" (the text of the statute) from their "dicta" (legislative history) either? If majority opinions of judges are subject to the same issues of individual intents, unconscious intents, etc., would you prefer that judges just give us an order or outcome without the discursive rationalizations (distinctions between carrots and potatoes) that follow?
-- HenryRoss - 28 Mar 2015 | | | |
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