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231The Indeterminacy of Law and the Rationality of Adjudicationobjections have been raised against this "special-case thesis," whichAlexy first proposed in the somewhat broader context of justificationand application discourses.61(a) The specific constraints governing the forensic action ofparties in court seemingly prohibit one from using standards ofrational discourse to assess courtroom proceedings in anyway. Theparties are not committed to the cooperative search for truth, andthey can pursue their interest in a favorable outcome through "theclever strategy of advancing arguments likely to win consensus."62Byway of plausible reply, one can say that each participant in a trial,whatever her motives, contributes to a discourse that from the judge'sperspective facilitates the search for an impartial judgment. Thislatter perspective alone, however, is constitutive for grounding thedecision. 63(b) The indeterminacy of the discourse procedure is moreproblematic; the presuppositions and procedures required for anyproper process of argumentation are not selective enough tonecessitate single right decisions.64 Insofar as this objection pertainsto discourse theory in general, I will not consider it here.65Rather, I will limit myself to the critique of the indeterminacy oflegal discourses. Alexy characterizes the latter as the subset ofmoral-practical discourses that are bound to an existing body oflegal norms. Accordingly, he supplements the universal rules ofdiscourse with special rules and forms of argument that essentiallyreproduce established canons oflegal interpretation. To refute theindeterminacy thesis, Alexy would have to show that these proceduralprinciples and maxims of interpretation, which have beengathered from actual practice and systematized in textbooks, merelyspecify the universal requirements for moral-practical discourses inview of the connection with existing law. A brief allusion to structuralsimilarities in the rules and forms of argument respectivelydeployed in the two types of discourse is not sufficient.66(c) It is clear to Alexy that discursively grounded legal decisionscannot be "right" in the same sense as valid moral judgments: "Therationality of legal argumentation is thus, to the extent that it isdetermined by statute, relative to the rationality of legislation.Absolute rationality in legal decisionmakingwould presuppose therationality of legislation. "67 Insofar as this presupposition is not