Statutory Interpretation and Denotational Disagreement

Abstract Can Hartian positivism adequately explain disagreements, among U.S. officials, about the correct method of statutory interpretation? Ronald Dworkin influentially argued it cannot. Dworkin maintained that (1) debates about the correct method of statutory interpretation are ‘theoretical’ disagreements; and (2) Hartian positivism cannot explain theoretical disagreements, except by positing implausible confusion or disingenuity on the part of legal officials. I show here that (1) is false. A disagreement about the correct method of statutory interpretation need not involve a theoretical disagreement of any kind. It may instead involve a purely ‘denotational’ disagreement among officials—i.e., a disagreement about the denotation of a concept appearing in a criterion of legal validity that all officials accept. I argue that, since the U.S. statutory interpretation debate plausibly is a purely denotational one, it does not pose the difficulties for Hartian positivism that Dworkin and other critics have supposed.