Pragmatism requires judges to adapt law to social change, not freeze it.

Evidence

But pragmatists are not content with a vague neotraditionalism. They know it will not do to tell judges to resolve all doubts against change and freeze law as it is, let alone to return to some past epoch in legal revolution (1950? 1850?). As society changes, judges, within the broad limits set by the legislators and by the makers of the Constitution, must adapt the law to its altered environment. No version of traditionalism will tell them how to do this. For this they need ends and an awareness of how social change affects the appropriate means-how, for example, the coming of the telegraph and the telephone altered the conditions for regulating contracts. They need, in short, the instrumental sense that is basic to pragmatism. — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 123

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies pragmatism’s relation to traditionalism: it adopts caution but rejects freezing law, needing instrumental adaptation instead.
• XREF: connects to: Reframing Hindu law as changeable law enables its reform.; Pragmatism has revived but produced no new jurisprudence. — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 6; Pragmatic law judges rules by their consequences, not their origins. — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 38 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Pragmatism inverts formalism by deriving legal rules from social need rather than semantic extension #expands (0.85) — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 96
• The common law adapts to social and economic change #corroborates (0.80) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1311
• Inductive reasoning allows the law to adapt to changing societal times. #expands (0.70) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 613
• Pragmatism’s rejection of foundations licenses rhetoric’s role in legal change #expands (0.55) — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 137