Abstract
The primary aim of this chapter is to show that several missteps made by others in their thinking about law as an artifact are due to misconceptions about the role of intentions in understanding law as an artifact. I first briefly recap my own contention that law is a genre of institutionalized abstract artifacts (put forth in The Functions of Law (OUP 2016) and subsequent papers), mostly following Searle's understanding of institutions and Thomasson's understanding of public artifacts. I highlight the central place that this theory affords law's functions, without requiring the theorist to say that possession or performance of the function is either necessary or sufficient for inclusion in the class of law. Some of the most common misunderstandings are exemplified in Brian Leiter's paper 'Legal Positivism about the Artifact Law'. He thinks that holding an intentionalist view of artifacts commits the theorist to privileging drafters' intentions when interpreting law. (It doesn't.) He also has confusions about the differences between artifact tokens and artifact types leading him to a problematically broad understanding of artifacts. Another problem can be seen in thinking that functional understandings of artifacts are vulnerable to the same problems that arise in functional explanations for biological systems. I go on to consider the work of Luka Burazin and Corrado Roversi, addressing worries that making intentionality central to artifacts implies too much conscious thought is required to make one, noting that several theories of intentionality do not require conscious thought in the execution of intentional action. While those who think a central place for intentionality threatens to leave us unable to explain customary law, this can be dealt with by noting the important distinction between customary rules and customary laws (where the latter requires a decision to enlist public aid in redressing violations). I claim that authors' intentions are communicated requests for the artifacts' audiences to see the artifacts as members of their putative kinds. Finally, I address the question of whether or not legal systems are themselves artifacts and institutions, given that they may or may not have been intentionally created. An early lawgiver might have created a legal system by accident in the process of handing down the first laws. I raise the possibility that we might want to impute intentionality to necessary by-products of artifact creation, seeing those by-products as artifacts as well.