Two Problems for Legal Realists

-- By BrookSutton - 24 Feb 2010

I. The argument for legal realism generates its own problems

II. The legal realist challenge

a. Rule-skepticism

i. A rule of law cannot contain its applications

ii. Any set of prior applications admits an indefinite number of possible rules

b. Fact-skepticism

ii. The facts of a case are the subjective narrative output of numerous actors

c. The law is indeterminate in outcome and the constraints of the Rule of Law on judges are fictions

III. The realist approach

a. A purely logical analysis of the rule is insufficient to justify a legal decision

b. Judges should embrace the political aspect of legal decisions

IV. Two problems for legal realism

a. The epistemological problem

i. What grounds the claim that experience is primary?

ii. Two theories of meaning

b. The pragmatic problem

i. Does legal realism sell out the poor?

Two Problems For Legal Realists

The argument for legal realism generates two challenges for the realist project, one epistemological and one pragmatic. The rule-skeptical and fact-skeptical objections proposed by realist thinkers shatter the fundamental formalist belief that precedent uniquely determines the outcome of legal cases. However, these objections also give rise to the epistemological and pragmatic problems identified in this essay.

The Legal Realist Challenge to Formalism

Rule Skepticism

Rule skepticism can be summarized by the proposition that a rule of law cannot contain its applications. It presents two difficulties for legal formalists. First, no set of precedents is sufficient to produce a general rule where the set is incomplete. This resembles the problem of induction faced by scientists. However, a key difference between law and the natural sciences makes the problem of induction particularly destructive to legal formalism. Science is predictive. Its hypotheses are verifiable by reference to experience. Conversely, the law is prescriptive. Experience can neither confirm nor disconfirm the truth of an application of law. Rule skepticism raises a second not unrelated challenge for legal formalists insofar as any set of prior decisions generates an indefinite number of possible rules. A vicious circle results: the rule depends on its applications, which depend on the rule.

Fact Skepticism

However, rule skepticism does not represent the only realist assault on formalism. The cynic, who possesses a canon of laws and is untroubled by the circular logic of their application, must still contend with fact skepticism. A court operates by applying rules to the facts of a case. The facts of a case comprise the subjective narrative output of witnesses, attorneys, juries, judges, detectives, etc. Inevitably these actors must decide between competing accounts. The very purpose of a jury is to resolve disputed issues of fact. Therefore, even when the application of a rule to a set of facts is clear, the facts that ground its application admit indeterminacy.

The Realist Approach

Both the rules of law and the facts of a legal case resist the proposition that reasoning from precedent uniquely determines legal outcomes. Once one concedes the skeptical argument that precedent cannot completely determine the outcome of legal cases, the question becomes, what does? In The Common Law, Holmes surmised that judges respond to the “felt necessities of the times,” as well as personal and social biases. He advocates a clear-eyed approach that sees the desired aims of a decision and the reasons for desiring it. This account provides a basic description of the legal realist project, which elevates policy considerations in legal decision-making and rejects deference to precedent where it does not serve specific social goals. Law becomes politics by another name.

The Problems It Creates

The Epistemological Problem

While the legal realist objections to formalism are compelling, they create their own difficulties for the realist project. The epistemological problem originates in the recognition by realists that unconscious motivations shape legal decisions. In response, Holmes calls for a legal method that would unearth these hidden forces—a “science of values.” A science of values would put judges in touch with the bedrock habits, beliefs and attitudes that inform their decisions. Such a science presupposes that judges are capable of accessing their own biases and those of society as simple matters of fact. This proposition reflects the realists’ regard for the primacy of experience. But, what grounds the belief that experience is primary, particularly with regard to values?

To lay claim to the real motivations for a legal decision, legal realists must produce a theory of meaning that underwrites unmediated access to experience. Otherwise, judges apply the law blindly. Realist critiques lend themselves to two interrelated theories of meaning. One theory holds that meanings are cultural artifacts. Institutions circumscribe the limits of meaning by policing its terms. While not transcendental, this theory permits its own brand of legal formalism based on the norms of interpretative communities. The other theory sees meanings revised in response to felt necessities. Within this framework, circumstances confronting societies engender new hierarchies of meaning, i.e., the impact of the Depression on American political and legal ideals. Arnold captures both theories and their interrelation in The Folklore of Capitalism. In his account, a prevailing mythology dominates the possibilities for the application of meanings, until it fails to meet the demands of an emergent crisis, at which point it gives way to a new hegemony.

However, neither theory suffices, alone or in combination, to establish the primacy of experience. The former theory fails to dispel the possibility that existing institutions deposit the bedrock upon which legal decisions are founded. In this respect, realism differs from formalism without distinction. Neither grants jurists direct access to their underlying motivations. Likewise, nothing in the latter theory requires that the structure of meaning produced in the face of crisis did not already inhere in the preceding arrangement, or was not colored by it. Critically, values are not simple matters of fact, but lenses through which the world is viewed. No reference to experience can confirm the primacy of experience with regard to them—just as one cannot see the act of seeing—and transcendental arguments necessarily fall outside the realist project. Therefore, realism posits the primacy of experience, upon which Holmes bases the “life of the law,” as an article of faith.

The Pragmatic Problem

The absence of an epistemological basis for legal realism leads to a pragmatic problem for its adherents. Realism rejects reasoning from principles based on precedent. Thus, the realist project is methodological in nature, not substantive. It holds that the ends of the court are unavoidably political matters. But by pulling back the veil of formalism enshrouding the legal process, legal realists may simply be removing another obstacle preventing the wealthy, powerful and connected from achieving desired legal outcomes. The capital investment made by large firms pursuing the “science of values” may give weight to this concern, as might the erosion of due process defenses to politically popular law enforcement and national security strategies. At the very least, it seems a fair question to ask whether the law, reduced to politics by another name, will offer greater or lesser protection to minority interests.

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