Getting it Wrong: On Fallacies, Errors & Mistakes in Law and Legal Theories

SW 63: Getting it Wrong: On Fallacies, Errors & Mistakes in Law and Legal Theories

Convenors: Maciej Dybowski;Weronika Dzięgielewska;Wojciech Rzepiński

Contact: maciej.dybowski@amu.edu.pl.

Legal language shares a rich vocabulary for describing the problem of error. We speak of fallacies, mistakes, erroneous decisions, chains of unfortunate events, and even – through the lens of speech act theory – of the felicity or infelicity of performed acts. We also refer to defects, as well as to problematic practices or dispositions towards acting in incorrect or misguided ways.

Errors in law may concern its content, interpretation, reasoning, or application. Yet it remains unclear what it is to get it wrong in the law. Such claims may refer to our own actions and cognitive limitations, or to the broader extra-legal context, including expert pronouncements, received truisms, or cognitive biases.

If it is possible to be mistaken about the law, the sources of these different forms of error require careful examination. Such errors may stem from our cognitive practices in engaging with law, or from legal practice itself and its substantive content. Identifying the sources of error may enable the more effective design and selection of appropriate corrective mechanisms. It is important to consider whether the law contains internal mechanisms designed to prevent, detect, or correct error.

Error can also be examined, and committed, at the level of legal theory. A theory of law may be described as flawed for a variety of methodological, conceptual, or normative reasons. At the same time, it is worth considering what might correct or rehabilitate such theories. It is also possible that legal errors are not always failures but phenomena that sometimes play a productive or even constitutive role within legal practice.

In this special workshop, we invite participants to explore differently understood forms of error in the context of law – including the very idea of error in law, its sources, its functions, and possible responses to it. Our aim is to deepen our understanding of how legal theories and practices develop, and, more broadly, to shed new light on the nature and content of law.

To develop these issues further, we propose the following research questions. At the same time, we welcome independent interpretations of the suggested theme.

This workshop is not intended to address errors relating to legal evidence, nor other mistakes arising strictly from fact-finding during legal proceedings. Subject to this limitation, all perspectives on the principal research theme are encouraged.

Problem Area I: Diagnosing Fallacies, Errors & Mistakes

• What are we getting wrong in law? What are the legal fallacies, errors and mistakes? What counts as a legislative error, and what counts as the legal fallacies, errors and mistakes in legal scholarship?
• Is a typology of legal errors possible?
• Can legal practice be wrong about law? What level of fallibility are we willing to accept?
• What are the sources of legal errors? Do they stem i.e. from fallacies in legal reasoning or rather heuristics / biases?
• What types of fallacy or error characterise theories of law? Are there flaws inherent for any legal theory?
• Where can legal theory look for diagnoses of its fallacies / errors (i.e. in which other branches of science)?
• Who is to blame for legal fallacies, errors and mistakes in law?
• How do authority figures and experts influence the way legal fallacies, errors & mistakes are perceived?
• Could advances in computational technologies make us overly reliant eg. on statistics even in legal theory?
• Do legal practices play a distinctive role in identifying fallacies, errors and mistakes in law?
• Do we rely on heuristics when we discuss the law – and if so, in what ways?

Problem Area II: Remedies, Constraints, and Responses

• How can getting it wrong in law be for the best?
• What remedies or corrective mechanisms exist within the law to protect it from error, if any?
• Are heuristics a source of, or a remedy for, fallacies in legal discourse?
• How can we know that legal statements are correct?
• Can other disciplines meaningfully contribute to knowledge about errors in law?
• Apart from simply calling decisions right or wrong, are there other ways to evaluate them?
• Do legal practices play a distinctive role in remedying fallacies, errors and mistakes in law?
• Is it possible that flawed practices teach us more about law than correct ones?

Call for papers:

We would like to ask the Congress participants interested in participating in our workshop to submit a short abstract of up to 300 words by the 31st of March (EOD, GMT+1) and fill out the registration form provided on the IVR 2026 website according to the schedule provided by the Conference Organizing Committee.

Applications containing basic personal data together with abstracts are to be sent to maciej.dybowski@amu.edu.pl.

We intend to notify the selected speakers about the workshop agenda in mid-April.

Special Workshop is prepared within the framework of a research project funded by the National Science Centre, Poland, PRELUDIUM 20, Grant number 2021/41/N/HS5/02507.

Contact: 

Maciej Dybowski (maciej.dybowski@amu.edu.pl)

Weronika Dzięgielewska (weronika.dziegielewska@amu.edu.pl)

Wojciech Rzepiński (wojciech.rzepinski@amu.edu.pl)