It may be that when the details of this practice are laid bare, the concepts we do use will be shown to be as silly and as thick with illusion as those the nominalists invented. If so, then we shall have to find other ways to describe what we do, and either provide other justifications or change our practices. But until we have discovered this and made these adjustments, we cannot accept the nominalists’ premature invitation to turn our backs on the problems our present concepts provide.
Evidence
Certain lawyers (we may call them “nominalists”) urge that we solve these problems by ignoring them. In their view the concepts of “legal obligation” and “the law” are myths, invented and sustained by lawyers for a dismal mix of conscious and subconscious motives. The puzzles we find in these concepts are merely symptoms that they are myths. They are unsolvable because unreal, and our concern with them is just one feature of our enslavement. — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 11 (
#qualifies, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Defending the idealized version of a practice cannot guide real-world policy — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 6473; These are not puzzles for the cupboard, to be taken down on rainy days for fun. They are sources of continuing embarrassment, and they nag at our attention. They embarrass us in dealing with particular problems that we must solve, one way or another. Suppose a novel right-of-privacy case comes to court, and there is no statute or precedent either granting or denying the particular right of anonymity claimed by the plaintiff. What role in the court’s decision should be played by the fact that most people in the community think that private individuals are ‘morally’ entitled to that particular privacy?; Of course the suggestion that we stop talking about ‘the law’ and ‘legal obligation’ is mostly bluff. These concepts are too deeply cemented into the structure of our political practices-they cannot be given up like cigarettes or hats. Some of the nominalists have half-admitted this and said that the myths they condemn should be thought of as Platonic myths and retained to seduce the masses into order. This is perhaps not so cynical a suggestion as it seems; perhaps it is a covert hedging of a dubious bet. (+7 more)
Related
- Legal nominalists treat law and obligation as myths to be discarded (similarity 0.93)
- These concepts are too deeply cemented into the structure of our political practices-they cannot be given up like cigarettes or hats. Some of the nominalists have half-admitted this and said that… (similarity 0.92)
- Of course the suggestion that we stop talking about ‘the law’ and ‘legal obligation’ is mostly bluff. These concepts are too deeply cemented into the structure of our political practices-they… (similarity 0.92)
- Concepts of law and legal obligation must stay until shown illusory (similarity 0.90)
- Debunking legal concepts first requires a theory of how we actually use them (similarity 0.85)
- Day in and day out we send people to jail, or take money away from them, or make them do things they do not want to do, under coercion of force, and we justify all of this by speaking of such… (similarity 0.81)
- Nominalist legal theory reduces to an attack on mechanical jurisprudence (similarity 0.80)
- The concepts of legal right and obligation, despite daily reliance, resist clear definition. (similarity 0.80)
Broader Connections
- Legal nominalists treat law and obligation as myths to be discarded
#qualifies(0.70) — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 11