Law’s Language
Meaning and Normativity

This Element evaluates the dominant answers from analytic jurisprudence in light of current philosophy of language.

Daniel Wodak (Author)

9781009711364, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 December 2025

75 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 0.6 cm, 0.275 kg

The language of law includes normative or prescriptive terms such as 'obligation' and 'permission'. How do we explain the meaning of prescriptive legal language? This has long been regarded as a problem for positivists, since at first glance their view suggests we can derive an ought – a legal obligation or right or permission – from descriptive social facts alone. This Element outlines what we should want from a semantics of prescriptive legal language, critically evaluates four leading semantic accounts, and argues that legal prescriptivity is not, in the end, a problem for positivists.

Introduction
1. That's just semantics
2. From 'must' to 'obligated'
3. Is 'legal' like 'Kantian'?
4. Hooray for law
5. Are legal duties made up?
6. Hume's law and the law
Conclusion
References.

Subject Areas: Jurisprudence & philosophy of law [LAB]