[8.1] The law of statutory interpretation directs us to ascertain the ‘purpose’ of an Act when construing a provision of that Act. This is one of the few general principles of statutory interpretation law that is the subject of a legislative mandate, though the common law has developed an equivalent principle. The mandate is that we must have regard to the purpose of an Act and choose the construction that promotes or best achieves that purpose. This does not warrant neglect of the statutory text or context, but instead requires the interpreter to have regard to the purpose in the context of the broader analysis of text and context required by the rules of statutory interpretation. Sometimes the purpose will be critical to the task of attributing meaning and sometimes it will be of little value. The value that purpose can provide to the task may depend on the degree of specificity with which it can be expressed. Many Acts embody multiple purposes or the purpose of the Act may be general. For these reasons, the purpose of the provision being construed can be more helpful for the interpretative task than the purpose of the Act as a whole.

[6.1] Statutory interpretation is to be ‘text-based’. ‘The text’ here refers to the words whose meaning or effect is in issue. Rooted in constitutional principles, consideration of the text is the starting point of the interpretative process. The text supplies the basis for ascertaining the ordinary or grammatical meaning and similar meanings. In turn, that supplies a presumptive and weighty meaning. After having been read in context, the text is also the ending point of the interpretative process. It is where meaning is ultimately held to ‘reside’. But, for an interpreter, the text is not limiting in the sense that he or she must choose between its grammatical or semantic possibilities, read in isolation. The paramount object remains to give effect to the intention of Parliament.

While Wittgenstein has become recognized as the most overt philosophical influence in Wallace’s writing, he was by no means the only one. Wallace was heavily indebted to numerous philosophical schools, and was particularly influenced by the linguistic turn, and the post-philosophical ideas of Rorty and Cavell. Wallace attended classes with Stanley Cavell at Harvard University, and his influence on Wallace has been traced in recent scholarship by Adam Kelly and others. This chapter offers guidance on reading Wallace through the lens of what Cavell referred to as “moral perfectionism” – the drive toward constant moral improvement, an endless iterative repetition of self-discovery, “a process of moving to, and from, nexts” – which Wallace explored and embodied in different ways throughout the work. The recurrent theme of heroic attention as a virtuous struggle arguably owes a debt to Cavell’s concept of acknowledging the other as a moral good, and the anti-teleological drive of Wallace’s oeuvre fits neatly with Cavell’s imaginary of unending toil toward the good. Using the Pop Quiz structure of “Octet” as a point of departure and focusing more broadly on the dialogic imperative of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men as a whole, this chapter argues that Wallace’s work, with its sense of repeating shapes, themes and patterns, and especially the persistent figurations of failure and regrouping, is best read as a series of iterations of perfectionism, a career-long fantasy of searching for the good in the knowledge that it will not be attained.

This chapter turns to the second step of interpretation, namely content-determination. This exercise can be narrated in two ways: first, by reference to the formal rules of interpretation set forth in the VCLT; second, in light of the assumptions, predispositions, and standards of acceptability shared by the judicial community. The juxtaposition of these accounts highlights the interplay between freedom and constraint in international treaty interpretation. What guides the gaze of the interpreter? Where are the boundaries of their discretion? On the one hand, VCLT rules are powerless before the ontological indeterminacy of legal norms, and have therefore little cash value when it comes to derive exact meaning. On the other hand, the patterned practices and background knowledge of the community impose powerful limitations on the interpreter’s discretion.

In this chapter I traverse Merleau-Ponty’s account of language as the medium of thought, in which conceptual significations inhabit words instead of lying behind them (a mistake common to empiricist and intellectualist theories). We do not inspect an indicating word and indicated thing to reach a verbal signification. Rather we learn it as we learn to use a tool, by seeing it employed in a certain situation. Through the words that we utter we act and project action possibilities ahead of ourselves, as well as our attitudes towards these possibilities. Language is manifested as creative or speaking speech and as habitual or spoken speech. This explication is followed by an outline of Merleau-Ponty’s view of our affective lives in knowing, acting and loving, in which we always encounter others and things within a certain mood or mode of attunement, one that can widen or narrow down the world of possibilities.

This chapter concludes the discussion of interpretation by focusing on the emotions and mental processes of the interpreter. Each case presents at least one dilemma that cannot be solved through pure legal deduction. What options, then, does the interpreter have? First, they will seek the illusory comfort of legal objectivity, and convince themselves that the answer is out there, buried somewhere in the record. But it is not. Second, the interpreter will try to exercise responsible agency and provide an answer that best resonates with their ethical or political commitments. But the interpreter does not really know which interpretive outcome is preferable. Third, the interpreter will turn to the standard practices of the community and write pages upon pages of corollary analysis, hoping that the intractable issue will magically vanish. Finally, the interpreter will stick to their decision and defend it as the sole logical solution.

This and the next chapter defend the Argument from the Marks of Intentionality: Since powers share relevant marks of intentionality with mental states, powers are intentional properties. After identifying ten marks of intentionality, including those advanced by C. B. Martin and Karl Pfefier at the beginning of the physical intentionality debate, this chapter focuses on applying what are arguably the three essential marks of intentionality: directedness, intentional inexistence, and intentional indeterminacy. Directedness, inherently connected to intentional inexistence, is the main focus here: Just as thoughts are directed toward objects that need not exist, powers are directed toward manifestations that need not occur. The discussion explores what directedness is and is not. It is argued that directedness is a representational phenomenon. Therefore, since powers are directed, they are representational intentional states, contrary to George Molnar’s claim that powers are nonrepresentational intentional states. The concluding section argues that powers, like thoughts, display indeterminacy.

Is logic intrinsically normative? Given that we often make errors in reasoning, one might hold that logic is not about how we do think but about how we ought to think. However, logical laws say nothing about thinking. How does logic gain normative traction on psychological processes such as belief formation or reasoning? To answer this question, the chapter begins by examining the debate between descriptivists, who hold that logic simply describes truth-preserving entailment relations, and normativists, who hold that logic is intrinsically normative. Husserl was a descriptivist, and Heidegger’s early work follows him. But Heidegger’s phenomenological account of the truth-predicate as grounded in the comportment of assertion, and his analysis of the “hermeneutic as” that grounds such comportment, affords a different perspective on the debate. Logic provides constitutive norms for the practice of reason-giving, a kind of rationality – being answerable to others – that is not an essential property of, but is nevertheless demanded by, Dasein’s being as “care.” The chapter concludes by showing how Heidegger’s phenomenological approach can affirm the main claims of descriptivism while insisting that “the reign of logic” in philosophy “disintegrates into the turbulence of a more original questioning.”

This chapter examines Heidegger’s use of seemingly nonsensical sentences in his 1926 Logic lectures to illustrate the primacy of a kind of practical sense, which serves as a basis for a derivative logical-propositional sense. It contrasts Heidegger’s approach with a conception of nonsense emerging out of an “austere” reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, according to which nonsense is never a function of what words mean but only a result of a failure to assign a meaning to one or more elements of a would-be proposition; according to this austere reading, there are thus no nonsensical propositions, but only strings of meaningless signs. Although Heidegger in certain respects hews to this austere conception, viz. in recognizing the interplay between bipolarity and something’s being a proposition at all, his use of nonsense nonetheless departs from the specifics of the austere reading. Doing so, the chapter argues, allows Heidegger to do a kind of phenomenological-ontological work, whose possibility the austere reading renders obscure (at best).

The authors critique trauma and illness models of the effects of adversity, and go on to consider alternative societal and political understandings. They then review biological insights from attachment theory and affective neuroscience. An analogy with grief leads to consideration of post-traumatic growth, and adversity activated development.

A review of symptoms resulting from adversity then leads to consideration of the factors that help people rebuild their lives after major adversity, such as safety and security, interpersonal bonds, and networks. A positive sense of one’s identity and role, and feeling that life is just and meaningful, also helps. Effects of the asylum process often counter these factors.

People’s problems often have to be categorised as ‘health’ issues in order to access care. Positive and negative effects of this are reviewed.

Life extension consists in slowing, halting, or even reversing human ageing. I will briefly review why many reputable geroscientists believe this is possible. This raises three areas of ethical concern. First, some people argue that extended life is not desirable, and that we are better off without it. I explain why these are mostly bad arguments, and why, for most people, the advantages of extended life will outweigh whatever disadvantages it may have. The second concern is that widespread use of life extension will cause overpopulation. The third concern is that life extension will be so expensive that not everyone will be able to get it, and this is unjust. These are legitimate concerns, but not insurmountable. After reviewing the ethical issues behind these concerns, I argue that we should develop life extension and make it available provided that we take steps to avoid overpopulation and to distribute life extension fairly.