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< | Challenging the "scientificism" of the law
Why make an ugly
neologism in order to put scare quotes around it? For that purpose,
the sign "science" or "scientific quality" would
do. |
>
> | Challenging the scientific quality of the law |
| | -- By JohnBarker - 16 Feb 2012
Introduction |
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<
< | One particular comment struck me from one of the first classes we had. At that point, we had only read the article by Justice Holmes and had not really fleshed out some of the ideas that we’ve gotten into in the ensuing few weeks. We were discussing something that involved the fact that judges don’t necessarily do exactly what they say they do, a common theme based on what we have studied so far. The issue of the lack transparency in the law came up, and how maybe society and legal institutions need to be more aware of what the law is and what the law is not.
This sentence was
obviously unedited. The missing word wasn't found, and the extra
words weren't removed. That means the rest of the graf wasn't edited
either, which means the piece wasn't edited.
One of my colleagues asked a question that was something along the lines of pondering whether maybe there would be societal unrest if the law was less opaque, that maybe exposure to concepts like legal realism would have a negative effect on morale and faith in the government (very much paraphrasing here). |
>
> | One particular comment struck me from one of the first classes we had. At that point, we had only read the article by Justice Holmes and had not really fleshed out some of the ideas that we’ve gotten into in the ensuing few weeks. We were discussing the fact that judges don’t necessarily do exactly what they say they do, a common theme based on what we have studied. The issue of the lack transparency in the law came up, and how society and legal institutions need to be more aware of what the law is and what it is not. One of my colleagues asked a question that involved whether there would be societal unrest if the law was less opaque, that perhaps exposure to concepts like legal realism would have a negative effect on morale and faith in the government. |
| | Why is the essay's
reader best brought into the idea you have to present by a slack and |
| | presented tautly in half a sentence? We're 160 words into your draft
and we haven't heard anything about your idea. |
|
<
< | As soon as the question was asked, I thought it was a very interesting one, and worth thinking about. In fact, we have had similar discussions in at least a couple of my other classes in the last six months, about how faith in the court system on the part of the people is vitally important, and how courts must sometimes make policy decisions specifically to retain the faith of the population. So I was very interested in hearing the professor’s response, and was thus somewhat surprised to see the consideration basically dismissed outright, almost with a sneer. And Eben was right. Why would it even cross our minds as a consideration that we should remain ignorant about how the world really works (and how the world should work) just for the sake of tricking the population, and indeed tricking ourselves, into some sort of static compliance? Too strong of a focus on order and on some understanding of national unity as opposed to on really interacting with the truth and with reality results in a failure to progress and a failure to better ourselves and our system. As Holmes says, “It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.” |
>
> | As soon as the question was asked, I thought it was a very interesting one, and worth thinking about. In fact, we have had similar discussions in at least a couple of my other classes in the last six months, about how faith in the court system on the part of the people is vitally important, and how courts must sometimes make policy decisions specifically to retain the faith of the population. So I was very interested in hearing the professor’s response, and was thus somewhat surprised to see the consideration basically dismissed outright, almost with a sneer. And Eben was right. Why would it even cross our minds as a consideration that we should remain ignorant about how the world really works (and how it should work) just for the sake of tricking the population, and indeed tricking ourselves, into some sort of static compliance? Too strong of a focus on order and on some understanding of national unity as opposed to on really interacting with the truth and with reality results in a failure to progress and a failure to better ourselves and our system. |
| | But that's not the same
argument being dismissed. Another argument is being dismissed there, |
| | But why do we keep coming back to these ideas involving the fallacies of our legal system? Why in general is it so difficult to really interact with that system and focus on understanding its theory, as well as on bettering that theory and its application? There are a lot of possible answers, and certainly the truth is that many of them in combination make people resistant to challenging the way we think about the world. Such an exercise would be difficult and highly theoretical, and then there is maybe some fear of the unknown and of what it means for our society and culture if the law doesn’t “mean” something logically. These are certainly on point; the second is a particularly strong and noteworthy factor, and connects in an interesting way to Robinson’s seeming paradox that some rapists are the worst people, and some are the kindest (things aren’t black-and-white). |
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<
< | Conclusion
How can you be ready for
a conclusion? We still don't know what your idea is, nor have we
seen any development or argument. As recently as 150 words ago, at
the beginning of a long graf with little content, you were still
asking rhetorical questions about ideas that aren't
yours.
But one possible factor that, potentially just for its newness to me, really stuck out as a consequence of Jerome Frank’s article comes at the end of his discussion on equating law and science. Some legal thinkers, so the argument goes, have striven for “scientific dispassionateness” which has resulted in “confus[ing] scientific objectivity with disinterest in values” and attempts to be completely removed from ethics; and precisely because law is not a science and ethical values are in reality pervasive in any legal thinking, such theorists have essentially selectively “buried” their own ethical assumptions within their supposedly logically coherent thoughts (216-17). |
>
> | But one possible factor that, potentially just for its newness to me, really stuck out as a consequence of Jerome Frank’s article comes at the end of his discussion on equating law and science. Some legal thinkers, so the argument goes, have striven for “scientific dispassionateness” which has resulted in “confus[ing] scientific objectivity with disinterest in values, and attempts to be completely removed from ethics. And precisely because law is not a science, and ethical values are in reality pervasive in any legal thinking, such theorists have essentially selectively “buried” their own ethical assumptions within their supposedly logically coherent thoughts (216-17). |
| | So your conclusion
begins by summarizing yet another idea that isn't yours in a single
100-word run-on sentence? |
|
<
< | As much as this process might be unconscious, I believe it could have an effect on peoples’ reluctance to acknowledge the truth about the subjectivity and human element of the law or to think of ways to improve our understanding of the law. My point is that perhaps there is some sort of “digging in” effect, where those “in the know” are able to (again, unconsciously) instill their own social values into the legal system and retain control. So maybe individuals are keeping power and featuring their values prominently in the structure of our legal system by doing exactly what my colleague on the second day of class suggested. Maybe on some level the “scientificism” of the law is a form of social control that has more power than the law itself. |
>
> | As much as this process might be unconscious, I believe it could have an effect on peoples’ reluctance to acknowledge the truth about the subjectivity and human element of the law or to think of ways to improve our understanding of the law. My point is that perhaps there is a sort of “digging in” effect, where those “in the know” are able to (again, unconsciously) instill their own social values into the legal system and retain control. Which means individuals are keeping power and featuring their values prominently in the structure of our legal system by doing exactly what my colleague on the second day of class suggested. On some level, then the perceived scientific quality of the law is a form of social control that has more power than the law itself. |
| | And in the end your
conclusion is "maybe" something? Your point is that perhaps there is |