Legal pragmatism values long-range and systemic consequences, not merely case outcomes.

Evidence

Mention of systemic concerns should help demolish the canard that legal pragmatism implies the suppression of such concerns in favor of doing shortsighted substantive justice between the parties to the particular case. The relevant consequences to the pragmatist are long run as well as short run, systemic as well as individual, the importance of stability and predictability as well as the importance of justice to the individual parties, and the importance of maintaining language as a reliable method of communication as well as the importance of interpreting statutes and constitutional provisions freely in order to make them speak intelligently to circumstances not envisaged by their drafters. — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 117

Categorization

• XREF: Corrects the common anti-pragmatist strawman; connects to Dworkin’s critique later contested at location 119. — connects to: Pragmatism’s rejection of foundations licenses rhetoric’s role in legal change — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 137; Pragmatism inverts formalism by deriving legal rules from social need rather than semantic extension — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 96; The Rule of Law values predictability and uniformity over individual justice — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 61 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Legal legitimacy is structural contingency, not shared conviction #expands (0.75)
• Pragmatic law judges rules by their consequences, not their origins. #expands (0.70) — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 38
• Pragmatism inverts formalism by deriving legal rules from social need rather than semantic extension #expands (0.60) — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 96
• Pragmatism requires judges to adapt law to social change, not freeze it. #expands (0.55) — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 123
• The Rule of Law values predictability and uniformity over individual justice #contradicts (0.50) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 61