Abstract

There is a familiar disagreement between Justice Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court and Ronald Dworkin over whether the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution could be plausibly interpreted so as to prohibit capital punishment. The dispute reflects a deep divergence in approach to statutory interpretation. I explore this divergence by paying particularly close attention to its metasemantic background. I then argue that the metasemantic orientation clearly vindicates the Dworkinian side.