Legal validity the fabric of justice

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Introduction: Why Legal Validity? -- I. An Intriguing Fact -- II. The Code Idea -- III. A Neglected Question -- 2. Legal Power -- I. The Task Ahead -- II. Facilities to Change Legal Positions -- III. Super-Tramp -- IV. Raz's Take -- V. Facilities Revisited, or Robert's Home Move -- 3. Intention in Valid Acts -- I. Four Peculiar Traits -- II. The Technique of Communication -- III. Codes, or How to Speak Your Mind -- IV. Back to Law -- V. Valid Acts That Invoke a Legal Regime -- VI. Valid Acts That Circulate -- VII. Unintentional Valid Acts -- VIII. Failed Attempts -- IX. The Technique of Legal Validity -- 4. Justice and Convergence -- I. Duties of Justice -- II. Specific Convergence -- III. The Scope of Specific Convergence -- IV. Marking and Enforcing -- V. Law's Marking: Legal Validity -- VI. Two Levels of Convergence -- 5. Reasons to Empower -- I. Empowerment -- II. Expertise and Capacity -- III. Proximity -- IV. The Rule of Law: Rulings -- V. The Rule of Law: Rulings About Validity -- VI. The Rule of Law: General Law-Making -- VII. Self-Direction -- 6. The Systemic Character of Legal Meaning -- I. The Moral Need for Law's Positivity -- A. Determinacy -- B. Ease of Identification -- C. Targeted Crafting -- II. The Systemic Character of Legal Meaning -- III. A Function of the Acts of Others -- IV. Legal Meaning Through Time -- V. A Single Author? -- VI. Threads in a Fabric -- 7. Conclusion: The Fabric of Justice -- I. The Strength of Limited Power -- II. Validity's Spell.

"Critical human interests are affected on a daily basis by appeal to past decisions deemed to be 'legally valid'. They include statutes, deportation orders, judgments, mortgage contracts, patents and wills. Through the technique of validity, lawyerly reasoning settles morally pressing matters in a way that largely bypasses moral argument. Legal philosophy has paid considerable attention to validity criteria, but it has neglected to explore validity's point: whether, and if so how, the pervasive technique of validity can contribute to a legal system's ability to realise justice and human rights. This book shows that validity can help a political community to foster justice precisely because validity does not primarily turn on moral considerations. Validity serves to both allocate, and limit, a distinct kind of power, a power that is key to forging valuable forms of enterprise and commitment in pursuit of individual and collective self-direction. By entrusting the capacity to decide to those who, in justice, ought to bear it, validity can enable persons and institutions to rally the resources and opportunities that only large-scale behavioural convergence can afford, thereby weaving a fabric of just relationships within the systemic framework of law"--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Also issued in print.

Electronic reproduction. London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019. Available via World Wide Web. Access limited by licensing agreement.