A Semiotic Interrogation of Law and Economics

James Moylan

doi:10.25918/thesis.263

The texts associated with the law and economics movement have become a site of seemingly intractable contention. Most texts in this body of literature are economically focused treatises in which legal economists undertake analyses in accord with the proposition that the law is an economically rational system. Yet there are also texts that provide commentary about law and economics that variously support or refute these propositions, with some authors typifying this realm of research as being politically informed or motivated. This thesis focusses predominantly on these texts that supply commentary. The question addressed asks; how might an analyst forge a range of descriptions of the texts and arguments associated with the law and economics movement that account for not just their apparent content but also the range of other meaning systems that they are evidently serving to arbitrate for their readers? In interrogating both this question and the texts associated with law and economics, the thesis illustrates how and why a semiotically informed sensibility of analysis can be of particular assistance in this instance. Over the course of eight chapters the thesis illustrates how such a modality of inquiry promotes an engagement with not just the propositions being advanced by those involved in argumentation, but also the epistemic and common knowledge framing factors that are serving to inform all sides of a debate, in a range of sometimes uniform and sometimes differing ways. In accord with these observations, the thesis not only examines a series of texts but also a range of cultural, linguistic, and common knowledge factors that are implicated in supporting and informing the range of counterpoised propositions of argumentation that are in evidence. Moreover, it is argued that it is significant that such a perspective of inquiry employs a language and focus of analysis that is largely unconcerned with the subject matter discriminations that are being commonly deemed as contentious, but which instead focusses on commonalities and contrasts in code discrimination and those aspects of common knowledge that are being appreciated as consequential in a variety of different arenas of discourse. By thus providing for an analytical perspective that is epistemically and culturally cognisant, yet also propositionally agnostic, a semiotically informed sensibility of analysis assists in enhancing communications relating to precisely those matters where this is of most consequence, which is regarding those instances of long-standing and widespread contention that are commonly described as constituting ‘intractable arguments.’

A Semiotic Interrogation of Law and Economics

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A Semiotic Interrogation of Law and Economics

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