Judging under Uncertainty

Adrian Vermeule is Ralph S. Tyler, Jr., Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. His many books include Law’s Abnegation: From Law’s Empire to the Administrative State (Harvard) and The Constitution of Risk.

• Introduction I. Critique 1. Interpretation without Institutions 2. Dynamism and Pragmatism: A Tale of Two Nirvanas II. Reconstruction 3. The Institutional Turn 4. Judicial Capacities: A Case Study 5. Systemic Effects and Judicial Coordination III. Applications 6. Judging under Uncertainty 7. Statutory Interpretation 8. Judicial Review and Constitutional Interpretation Conclusion: Interim Interpretive Theory Notes Index

The topic of legal interpretation is a large and enduring one, and Vermeule has made a distinct contribution. Part of that contribution comes simply from the way in which, more than any other scholar of interpretation, Vermeule combines the insights of legal philosophy, public choice theory, history, economics, social psychology, and political science, among others, with a prodigious knowledge of numerous areas of law to produce a genuine comprehensive work on legal interpretation. This is a serious, thoroughly academic, and wonderfully multi-disciplinary addition to the literature on legal interpretation, and in its focus on institutions and on less-than-perfect interpreters making decisions under conditions of uncertainty has a distinct argument and a distinct voice.