Addition to "Strings of Thought" (1/30/18)

Legislative Intent

1/30/18  Legislative “intent” lies in legislatures’ speech acts and not legislators’ speech acts.  That is, legislative “intent” is the speaker meaning of legislatures not legislators—confusing the two is a category mistake. For example, when the legislature adopts a rule requiring drivers to drive on the right side of the road, the legislature has performed a directive speech act adopting a rule to some end or purpose (such as changing driving patterns to enhance road safety).  When the legislature censures someone, it has performed an expressive speech act condemning someone for some end or purpose (such as discouraging future bad behavior on the part of public officials).  The different purposes (and the plans involved in such purposes) distinguish the different types of speech acts. Recognizing this distinction between legislature and legislator speech acts avoids pseudo-quandaries such as “How can we ever aggregate the subjective intent of countless legislators to determine legislative intent?” or “How do we include the intent of a legislator who votes for a bill for unrelated reasons?” Instead, we ask: “What is the objective bill or proposal (and the concomitant purpose or plan or both) properly adopted by the legislature?”  We also ask: “What are the objective concepts involved?” while acknowledging such concepts can have yet-to-be explored threads and extensions.

1/30/18 A legislature typically speaks best when it adopts a bill or other proposal (and any concomitant purpose or plan) after reasonable debate by legislators.   Although individual legislators’ speaker meaning in such debates can be highly relevant evidence of the legislature’s speaker meaning, legislators’ speech acts are not legislatures’ speech acts. 

The entire post of "Strings of Thought" can be found here.

Addition to "Strings of Thought" (1/21/18)

Speaker Meaning

1/21/18 “Original” speaker meaning includes the unexplored.  Imagine I buy a netted device I categorize as “my hammock” before I unbox and see it.  On the next day, I unbox “my hammock,” count its strings, and note their makeup and weave. On the third day, I tie “my hammock” between two trees.  I broadly gauge its new shape when tied into the world. On the fourth day, I refine “my hammock’s” new shape:  it contradictorily resembles both a canoe and a crescent moon. On the fifth day, I wonder whether “my hammock” now qualifies as a bed and tentatively conclude that it does. On the sixth day, I lie down in “my hammock” and see interesting new views from its vantage point. On the seventh day, I rest with no hammock thoughts in my head.  The “original” meaning of “my hammock” thus casts a wide and variable net not captured from day one. Instead, day by day through day six, I have obtained fuller and fuller understandings of “my hammock” including how it intersects with (and provides vantage points to) the world to which it is tied.  Thus, any “original concept” signified by “my hammock” is larger than any “original conception” (or first-day conception) of something boxed and unseen, is larger than any second-day conception adding counted strings, their makeup, and their weave, is larger than any third-day conception of the hammock as tied, and so on.  Furthermore, for those seeking speaker meaning, any “original concept” and any preceding daily conceptions don’t sleep the seventh day.

The entire post of "Strings of Thought" can be found here.

Speaker Meaning and the Interpretation and Construction of Executive Orders

Here is an abstract of my latest article posted on SSRN:

ABSTRACT:

This Article explores the interpretation and construction of executive orders using as examples President Trump’s two executive orders captioned “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States” (the “Two Executive Orders”).

President Trump issued the Two Executive Orders in the context of (among other things) Candidate Trump’s statements such as: “Islam hates us,” and “[W]e can’t allow people coming into this country who have this hatred.” President Trump subsequently provided further context including his tweet about the second of his Two Executive Orders: “People, the lawyers and the courts can call [the second of the Two Executive Orders] whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!”