The semantics of fact-finding legal statements and the ontology of legal facts

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K01217
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 05010:Legal theory and history-related
• Research Institution: Hitotsubashi University (2021); Kobe University (2018-2020)
• Principal Investigator: ANDO Kaoru 一橋大学, 大学院法学研究科, 教授 (20431885)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 法概念論 / メタ倫理学 / 法的判断

Outline of Final Research Achievements

There are philosophical puzzles about fact-finding legal statements. Judges create legal facts p when they judge "p is the case" as a termination of employment is created when the boss states "You're fired." Judges of higher courts can overturn and rewrite the legal fact, so that they can, surprisingly, rewrite the fact of past. Courts of last resort determines legal facts even when their judgements are irrational. In criminal trial, judges often exclude illegally obtained evidence and create the correspondent fact, which is necessarilly epistemically irrational. How can these practice be justified? In this research, we critisized the common view that legal facts are created by judges. What matters is not whether judges' legal statements are true or not, nor whether they are necessarily true like the boss's "You're fired.", but whether they are legally justified even when they are epistemically irrational.

Free Research Field

法哲学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

法的な「べき」を巡る近年の哲学的議論はメタ倫理学を応用することによって取り扱われるようになってきている。しかし、それでは取り扱えないのが、裁判官の行う事実認定である。裁判官の事実認定は「法的事実」を作出するとしばしば理解されているが、この見解は終審裁判所の不可謬性などを含意するという難点を有し、法に基づく国家の実力行使の正当性という法の支配の基本的理念と困難な関係を有している。この研究では、我々の社会にとって根本的に重要な法の支配や国家の実力行使の正当性を支えるものは、（願わくは民主的に統制された）裁判官に与えられた「法的事実」を創造する権力なのではなく、法そのものの正当性であることを示した。