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Cardozo Law Review

Abstract

Not surprisingly, legal interpretation is in a crisis in pluralist societies with widely diverging conceptions of the good. When there is sharp disagreement over fundamental values, there seems to be a complete lack of objective criteria to interpret legal texts, and particularly broadly articulated wide ranging textual provisions such as those characteristic of constitutions. Accordingly, interpretation looms as hopelessly subjective, and the interpretive subject as indispensable but utterly problematic. In a homogeneous society with widely shared religious, ethical, and political values, legal interpretations will count as just if they manage to reconcile justice according to law with justice beyond law. In a deeply divided heterogeneous society, however, seemingly irresoluble disagreements regarding justice beyond law make virtually any proposed alignment between justice according to law and justice beyond law unacceptable to a significant portion of the citizenry. Consequently, in divided polities, the search for just interpretations tends to yield just interpretation.

Keywords

Jurisprudence, Politics (General)

Disciplines

Jurisprudence | Law

Included in

Jurisprudence Commons

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