L'Interprete nella stanza cinese: il problema dell'opacita delle norme

Abstract

To introduce the problem of opacity in law, I shall put forward a mental experiment designed on the basis of a famous argument proposed by John Searle in the Eighties: the Chinese Room Argument. Searle's argument was originally framed as a critical contribution in the discussion about artificial intelligence. The thesis that it was supposed to purport was that computer cannot think and that a human mind does not work as a software. In reframing this argument I am pursuing a different aim: my version of the argument is supposed to give a contribution in the debate about legal interpretation by showing that interpretive aid is needed even though the content of the law (its sense, reference and conditions of application) is perfectly determined. This is the case when legal decision-makers do not know what the law prescribes, and this notwithstanding they use the law to settle the case. [...]