The authors of this book take different stances on these questions. Diana
Raffman does not even share Endicott’s diagnosis that Hercules’ predicament is
due to the quantitative vagueness of terms like ‘serious distress’: ‘The problem of
having to draw arbitrary boundaries between like cases owes not to the vagueness
of the legal language, but to the law’s inability to make use of that vagueness’
(p. 61). While ordinary speakers do not need to draw boundaries between incrementally
different cases thanks to vague predicates that license them to go either
way, courts ‘are trapped in the predicament Endicott describes’ because they need
stable decisions (p. 62). Roy Sorensen holds that while ordinary speakers can suspend
judgement in the face of vagueness, judges are cornered into prevarication,
or even lying. Adam Kolber takes a different perspective, advising legislatures to
‘smooth out’ the law by introducing more fine- grained regulations and linking
them to gradual changes in output. Leo Katz and Ralf Poscher insist on the inevitability
of arbitrary decisions with respect to the substance of at least some legal
issues. However, this does not imply that Hercules must have reached his wit’s end.