Improving One's Situation: Some Pragmatic Reflections on the Art of Judging

Abstract

From the introduction:

As legal theorists, we live in an age of self-conscious repetition: everything is "neo" and nothing is new. There are neo-realists, neo-formalists, neo-conservatives, and neo-pragmatists to name just a few. And what is not "neo" is "post" as in post-structuralist, post-colonial, and even postcritical. Indeed, the newest theories sound pointedly antitheoretical as deconstructionists, feminists, and critical legal scholars argue in various ways that conventional theory making is but one more mechanism for oppressing the powerless. In all this theory consciousness, it is difficult to have simple thoughts and it is especially difficult to think simply about judging because judging has been the object of so much theoretical attention. This is too bad. Judging, I think, is a little like riding a bicycle-if you are teetering out of control, it is unlikely that a complicated theory will help to restore the balance. Simple thoughts are more useful; they are easier to internalize and therefore more accessible when needed.