•  
  •  
 

Hofstra Law Review

Authors

Shawn J. Bayern

Abstract

In legal argumentation, appeals to certainty and predictability have enormous rhetorical power. This Article argues that their use outstrips their legitimate role in legal analysis. The Article is not literally “against certainty” in the sense that it promotes uncertainty as a good thing in itself; it is just a skeptical consideration of the role of appeals to certainty in legal theory. The Article’s principal contention is that arguments about certainty are often mistaken, that certainty itself is often misunderstood, and that many defenses of certainty in legal rules are tautological, irrelevant, or substantively overstated.

Included in

Law Commons

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.