purposivism

is the notion of consulting the purpose of a statute and deciding the case on the basis of what will further the purpose beyond what is in the text for example, recognizing that while expert witnesses did not exist at the time the constitution was ratified, since the the 'purpose' is to make the plaintiff 'whole', the loser of a case should be required to pay for this at-the-time-of-the-framing non-existent cost.

WALLACE: All right. You criticize and this gets to, as you say, some of your colleagues, another approach using a word I have to admit that I did not know existed prior to reading your book -purposivism. Did I pronounce that correctly' JUSTICE SCALIA: Yes, you did. It's a nice long word. I didn't make it up. WALLACE: What does it mean' JUSTICE SCALIA: [INAUDIBLE] What it means is -and it's probably the most popular of form of interpretation in recent times. It means consulting the purpose of the statute and deciding the case on the basis of what will further the purpose. Now, textualist consult purpose as well, but only the purpose that is apparent in the very text. I have to give you an example or you will not understand the difference. Let's assume a statute which provides that the winning party in litigation will obtain attorney's fees. The issue is whether that includes the fees paid to expert witnesses which can, you know, amount to thousands of dollars. The purpose of this would be inclined to approach that by saying, you know, what's the purpose of the statute' The purpose is to make the plaintiff whole, so that the money he receives for winning the case is money he can keep and he doesn't have to spend half of it on expert witness. The textualist would not say -would not say that. He would say what -what is the understood meaning of attorney's fees. And, in fact, it was never thought to include expert witness fees.

purposivism, n.Definitions

purposivism