Judicial scorekeeping

We sketch in this paper two interpretive accounts of what the legal expression "petty motives" means, the first according to the standard semantic explanation of content, the second according to an inferential explanation of content. Such an inferential explanation is based on a pragmatic account of semantics and a deontic scorekeeping model of adjudication inspired by the philosophical work of Robert Brandom. The resulting model of how a given legal provision is applied to a particular set of facts is what we call “Judicial Scorekeeping”