Research in the supporting sciences

TL;DR: The vagueness of legal terms like death and cruelty raises challenges in defining them, particularly in the context of constitutional law. A pragmatic approach to definition is more suitable than an essentialist one.

Abstract: This paper focuses on two legal terms, death and cruelty, and the problems raised by attempts at legal definition which are found in Supreme Court cases in the United States. For example, the supposed vagueness of the phrase cruel and unusual punishment used in the Eighth Amendment meant that no litigant challenging the constitutionality of a particular punishment met with success throughout the nineteenth century. Such vagueness is not always a defect, however, since the original lawmaker cannot foresee the future contingencies to which the law must be applied. The difficulty of defining death is a case in point: the original wording has become problematic as a result of unforseeable medical techniques. It is clear that a pragmatic conventionalist, rather than an essentialist, approach to definition is suitable. It is concluded that, for a workable theory of legal definition, legal language should be taken instrumentally. On this principle, the recommended procedure is not to construe terms in advance of novel situations and changing circumstances, except where individual rights are threatened.