Abstract
The present paper has two main goals: (i) to provide a logical representation of a coherentist closure of normative systems ; (ii) use this model to clarify a concept of coherence in law, which is faithful to a theory of legal validity as source based law. Source based law is taken here as the “evidential base” for the reconstruction of the normative system, therefore guiding both interpretation and legislation activities even when implicit legislative purposes are taken into account. Such reconstruction is given by the minimal assumption of “conservative” changes in the base of the original normative system so that it becomes coherent with legislative purposes. I use a belief revision model to provide a logical and abstract characterization of what I mean by “conservative changes”, without providing any material criteria for conservative choices (to be made by the legal interpreter or legislator).
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Notes
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See Amaya (2006) for a survey and relations of this discussion to the field of law.
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I will avoid complex discussions about the factual or normative character of the rule of recognition as proposed by Hart (1961) or the Grundnorm as proposed by Kelsen (1960) which are the product of this convention or convergent behavior of approval/disapproval of actions in conformity/disconformity to authoritative rules. See Himma (2002) for an introductory discussion on Hart’s rule of recognition. For Kelsen’s Grundnorm see Vernengo (1960).
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I cannot fully develop the argument within the limits of this paper and will limit myself to indicate counter examples challenging each thesis. For a more detailed account, see Maranhão (2012).
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Atria’s reading is based on MacCormick’s position expressed at the first edition of Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory. In the second edition of that book MacCormick already marked his disagreement with his previous statement: “That shows why deductive reasoning from rules cannot be a self–sufficient, self–supporting, mode of legal justification. It is always encapsuled in a web of anterior and ulterior reasoning from principles and values, even although a purely pragmatic view would reveal many situations and cases in which no one thinks it worth the trouble to go beyond the rules for practical purposes.” (MacCormick 1994, xiii).
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In the last two decades, abductive reasoning received considerable attention of Artificial Intelligence and many models were suggested to capture its rationality. These models help to clarify how the conclusion of an abductive inference is warranted by its evidences and background assumptions. Given that this method of inference is content increasing, a central concern is how to confer epistemic warrant to its conclusion (Psillos 2002). This concern is faced by the development of standards of comparison of competing theories which are highly informed by a coherentist aesthetics (the winner hypothesis is consistent, the one which explains the greatest amount of evidences, the one which is more adherent to one’s background assumptions, the simplest, without ad hoc restrictions, the more unified, the most precise, etc.). This links the justification of abduction in causal explanations to coherence theories of justification.
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Global coherence may be also defined as an specific case of local coherence (Hage 2013).
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One may also refer to Thagard’s (2000) method of measuring coherence by constraint satisfaction as a tool to abductive or coherentist inference if we take a belief that increases the level of coherence of a belief set (with respect to its own negation) as derivable from this set.
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This was Raz’s criticism to Dworkin’s integrity, what explains why Raz considers, after all, integrity not as coherentist theory of law, but a foundationalist one (the base would be the set of normative standards which constitute the political morality of a community). See Raz (1994).
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Maranhão, J.S.A. (2015). Conservative Coherentist Closure of Legal Systems. In: Araszkiewicz, M., Płeszka, K. (eds) Logic in the Theory and Practice of Lawmaking. Legisprudence Library, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19575-9_4
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