The Public Interest: Clarifying a Legal Concept

Appeals to the public interest in law are commonplace, but typically made without clarifying what the public interest is and how it can be determined. In law, this has led to ad hoc applications of the public interest and, consequently, to “judicial idiosyncrasy,” posing a threat to legal certainty. This paper aims to remedy these problems by providing much-needed conceptual clarification. It proposes that something is in the public interest if it increases the opportunities of the members of the public to pursue and realize the (permissible) ends they all share qua equal members of the public.