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Legal Truths and Falsities*
Author(s) -
SMITH MATTHEW NOAH
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
ratio juris
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.344
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1467-9337
pISSN - 0952-1917
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9337.2008.00414.x
Subject(s) - falsity , law , legislation , action (physics) , order (exchange) , state (computer science) , political science , politics , task (project management) , legal norm , law and economics , sociology , epistemology , philosophy , business , computer science , economics , physics , management , finance , quantum mechanics , algorithm
Abstract This paper has a two‐pronged thesis. First, laws should be understood as making factual claims about the moral order. Second, the truth or falsity of these claims depends as much on the content of the law as on whether the lawmaker has political authority. In particular, laws produced by legitimate authorities are successful as laws when they guide subjects' behavior by giving subjects authoritative reasons for action. This paper argues that laws produced by legitimate authorities accomplish this task (i) by being on their own sufficient to change the moral state of affairs, which (ii) thereby generates for people new moral reasons to act that they can read right off of the legislation.