{"id":31251,"date":"2024-11-29T12:32:20","date_gmt":"2024-11-29T19:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/runnymedesociety.ca\/?post_type=library&#038;p=31251"},"modified":"2024-11-29T12:32:20","modified_gmt":"2024-11-29T19:32:20","slug":"law-liberty-and-the-pursuit-of-the-common-good","status":"publish","type":"library","link":"https:\/\/runnymedesociety.ca\/en\/library\/law-liberty-and-the-pursuit-of-the-common-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Law, Liberty and the Pursuit of the Common Good"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this article, I wade into the debate between textualism and \u201ccommon good\u201d methods of interpretation. I argue that, except for those advocating the most extreme version of each position, the debate is a narrow one about the utilization of purpose in the interpretation of legal text. Most textualists already acknowledge that judges must look beyond the literal meaning of words and that various extraneous normative principles infuse the interpretation of text, including the presumption of a \u201crational lawgiver\u201d. My own approach, which is a more \u201cinclusive\u201d form of textualism, would also permit the consideration of extra-textual evidence of purpose and underlying principles \u2014 whether natural law or otherwise \u2014 provided they are utilized with humility and solely to discern authentic textual meaning. I further argue that the \u201ccommon good\u201d moniker is unhelpful as it obscures more than it clarifies and gives rise to a reasonable apprehension that its proponents are hostile to liberty and positive law. The response to overly literalist decisions should not be to jettison textualism in favour of a new method of interpretation, but rather to ensure that the textualist method is done right in individual cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"template":"","library--year":[108],"law-and-freedom":[],"library-theme":[170,169],"dicey-law-review":[78],"main-categories":[67],"class_list":["post-31251","library","type-library","status-publish","hentry","library--year-108","library-theme-common-good-interpretation","library-theme-textualism","dicey-law-review-volume-2","main-categories-dicey-law-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runnymedesociety.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library\/31251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runnymedesociety.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runnymedesociety.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/library"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runnymedesociety.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/runnymedesociety.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library\/31251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runnymedesociety.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"library--year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runnymedesociety.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library--year?post=31251"},{"taxonomy":"law-and-freedom","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runnymedesociety.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/law-and-freedom?post=31251"},{"taxonomy":"library-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runnymedesociety.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library-theme?post=31251"},{"taxonomy":"dicey-law-review","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runnymedesociety.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dicey-law-review?post=31251"},{"taxonomy":"main-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runnymedesociety.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/main-categories?post=31251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}