¿deben los jueces ser filósofos

8/12/2019 Deben Los Jueces Ser Filsofos

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DEBENNUESTROS JUECES SER FILSOFOS?PUEDENSER FILSOFOS?*

RONALD DWORKIN

Traduccin: Lenard !arc"a Jara#i$$E%&udian&e de Derec'( U) de Ca$da%( C$#ia

Rna$d D+r,in)Profesor de los departamentos de Derecho y de Filosofa, Universidad de NewYork, donde ensea desde 19!" #eci$i% dos tt&los en filosofa 'bachelor degrees( por las&niversidades de )arvard y *+ford, se&idos de &n --"." del Departamento de Derecho de)arvard" -&eo f&e dependiente del /&e0 -earned )and, est&vo asociado a la firma de a$oados&llivan 2 3romwell, y ense% en el Departamento de Derecho de la Universidad de Yale entre 1945y 1949" De 1949 a 1996 f&e profesor de filosofa del derecho 'Jurisprudence( en *+ford y desde1996 ha sido Quain Professor of Jurisprudencedel University 3ollee, de -ondres" 7&tor de ocholi$ros, incl&yendo Taking Rights Seriously 819, Laws Empire 81964, el c&al reci$i% laprestiiosa oif !ward de la 7merican .ar 7ssociation, y "reedoms Law 81994" & li$ro m:s

reciente es So#ereign $irtue% The Theory y Practice of E&uality, p&$licado en 5;;; por la )arvardUniversity Press" stado proh$a o re&le el a$ortoC

A B >s &na violaci%n de los as&ntos concernientes a la i&aldad ?&e &na naci%n de$e respetara s&s ci&dadanos c&ando permite ?&e las instit&ciones y los oranismos del >stado tenan enc&enta la ra0a en la aceptaci%n de los aspirantes a las &niversidades y a las esc&elasprofesionalesC B>s esto distinto del hecho de tratar de forma diferente a los aspirantes

*83opyriht E 5;;; $y #onald Dworkin -a versi%n oriinal de este ensayo f&e presentada oriinalmente,como*ust +ur Judges )e Philosophers, an They )e Philosophers,, en &na conferencia p$lica en NewYork en oct&$re 11 de 5;;;, honrando el nom$ramiento de Dworkin como &rista del ao ' Scholar of the(ear( del 3onse/o de New York para las )&manidades" -a conferencia f&e a&spiciada por la Firma de7$oados *rrick, )errinton 2 &tcliffe --P"


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dependiendo de s& p&nta/e en las pr&e$as de aptit&d o de s& ha$ilidad para el $aloncestoC

A BDe$emos asinar siempre rec&rsos escasos so$re la $ase del m=ritoC BG&= sinificaHm=ritoIC

A B-os o$iernos respeta$les violan principios f&ndamentales al near a los ci&dadanosaoni0antes el derecho a morir c&:ndo y c%mo ellos deseanC BG&e los ci&dadanos tenanderecho de independencia moral en las decisiones personales, sinifica ?&e la manera comode$en morir es s& decisi%n personalC B


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fil%sofosL sera ins&ltante tanto para los /&eces como para los fil%sofos ?&e los primeroscreyeran no $eneficiarse del est&dio de las teoras op&estas y diferentes de los se&ndos, dei&al manera como los fil%sofos se $enefician leyendo los escritos de los a$oados ?&edefienden tesis op&estas en &na disc&si%n" -o ?&e hacen los /&eces es de &na ranimportancia, no s%lo para las partes en el proceso sino tam$i=n, partic&larmente en elderecho constit&cional, para el o$ierno de la Naci%n" Bi los pro$lemas ?&e afrontan hansido de$atidos entre hom$res y m&/eres ed&cadas ?&e les dedicaron s&s vidas a estosde$ates, c%mo p&eden los /&eces inorar responsa$lemente lo ?&e esos hom$res y m&/ereshan escritoC

>sa es la primera parte del dilemaL Bdebenn&estros /&eces se fil%sofosC 7hora consideremosla se&ndaL Bpuedenser fil%sofosC Parece m&y poco realista pedirle a la mayora de los/&eces ?&e intenten o$tener &na formaci%n de prerado en filosofa y as loren &n mayorentendimiento de la e+iente, milenaria y enorme literat&ra filos%fica" 7dem:s de carecer detiempo, los /&eces consideraran a$s&rdo ?&e les endilaran n&evas responsa$ilidades comolas de atender de olpe c&rsos en los c&ales aprendan las tesis y los ar&mentos principalesde incl&so los fil%sofos morales y polticos contempor:neos m:s importantes, tales como

s verdad ?&e los a$oados &tili0an al&nasveces /&sto las mismas pala$ras y de la misma manera ?&e las pala$ras ?&e son &tili0adas enel len&a/e ordinario, pero lo hacen con sinificados m&y diferentesL c&ando &n a$oado


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dice ?&e &n contrato no es o$liante a menos ?&e se den ciertas HconsideracionesI, estapala$ra tiene m&y poco ?&e ver con la idea de consideraci%n" Pero es llamativamente d&doso?&e esto sea verdad respecto a los conceptos ?&e nom$r=" -os hom$res de estado y los/&eces ?&e estip&laron ?&e nadie de$e ser castiado si no es responsa$le de s&s actos, o ?&elas personas de$en ser tratadas como i&ales ante la ley, ?&isieron llevar los /&icios moralescorrientes a la pr:ctica /&rdica y por lo tanto emplearon los conceptos en los c&ales see+presan estos /&icios y principios" i, por el contrario, s&p&si=ramos ?&e los leisladores'law.makers( est&vieron constr&yendo conceptos /&rdicos completamente diferentes yespeciales, para los c&ales ellos &saron las mismas pala$ras Hresponsa$leI e Hi&alI,creeramos ?&e lo hicieron de manera perversa o sin motivo"

)ay, sin em$aro, &na forma m:s sofisticada y convincente del mismo reto" -a pr:ctica/&rdica y los precedentes confi&ran a men&do el sinificado de &na pala$ra tomada dellen&a/e ordinario, de tal manera ?&e la li$ertad ?&e tiene el /&e0 act&al de interpretar esaspala$ras de ac&erdo con &na teora o es?&ema filos%ficos, podr: estar m&y limitada" >lderecho penal, el de propiedad, el de contratos y el civil e+tracontract&al 'law of tort(, de$enser estr&ct&rados principalmente por relas t=cnicas c&ya aplicaci%n p&eda ser anticipada

con ra0ona$le confian0a por los ci&dadanos, los propietarios de casas, los testadores, loshom$res de neocios y las compaas de se&ros, y los precedentes, por tanto, tienen &n altovalor en estos as&ntos" i &n precedente esta$lece lo ?&e c&enta como responsa$ilidad en elDerecho Penal, o como ne+o ca&sal en el derecho civil e+tracontract&al, y &n /&e0 no es li$rede modificar 'o#errule( tal precedente, Bpor ?&= de$e entonces averi&ar si aln fil%sofopresenta o$/eciones convincentes a lo ?&e &n precedente ha esta$lecidoC

Pero a&n?&e el precedente limita la responsa$ilidad de los /&eces para &na n&evacomprensi%n de los conceptos $:sicos, no lo e+ime, incl&so en estas :reas del derechoprivado, de esa responsa$ilidad" Jnevita$lemente confrontar: n&evos casos con n&evos iros?&e lo o$liar:n a desarrollar los conceptos de manera no anticipada por los precedentes, y

c&ando lo haa, necesariamente emplear: s& propio criterio so$re c&:ndo la ente es dehecho responsa$le de lo ?&e hace, o c&:ndo &n acontecimiento determinado es realmente laca&sa de otro, y dem:s" >s cierto ?&e incl&so en estos Hcasos difcilesI los /&eces tienen laresponsa$ilidad de respetar la interidad con la historia /&rdica pasadaL no de$en apelar alos principios ?&e no tienen f&ndamento en las decisiones y las doctrinas anteriores" -ainteridad de$iera prohi$ir lo ?&e llamaramos outr/8e+aerado o filosofa parad%/icaL si larefle+i%n so$re mec:nica c&:ntica cond&/era a al&nos fil%sofos a &na n&eva perspectivaradical de la ca&salidad @incl&so m:s esc=ptica, diamos, ?&e la de )&me@ los /&eces noseran responsa$les de eval&ar ese n&evo desarrollo, por lo menos hasta c&ando f&eseaceptado por la com&nidad en eneral" Pero de n&evo, a&n?&e estas e+iencias de interidadlimitan la li$ertad de los /&eces, ellos no convierten los conceptos /&rdicos en alo diferentede los conceptos ordinarios ?&e los oriinaronR incl&so si &n /&e0 enfoca s& atenci%n hacialas doctrinas de la ca&salidad ?&e no pareceran e+traas a la ley, tendr: ?&e de/ar de lado enel camino m&cha literat&ra filos%fica"

Por otra parte, en las :reas m:s p$licas del derecho, de las c&ales me estoy oc&pandoprincipalmente a?&, la necesidad de los /&eces de confrontar as&ntos filos%ficos es m:srande y evidente" -os /&eces constit&cionales toman elecciones filos%ficas no de maneraocasional c&ando se presenta aln caso partic&larmente difcil, sino como &na c&esti%n der&tina" -a referencia de la Primera >nmienda a Hla li$ertad de e+presi%nI se refiere a la


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misma li$ertad ?&e los fil%sofos li$erales han cele$rado y e+plorado, y si &n /&e0 de$edeterminar si &na forma partic&lar de e+presi%n @p&$licidad comercial, por e/emplo@ caedentro de esa li$ertad, afrontar: las mismas disc&siones so$re principios ?&e inconta$lesfil%sofos polticos han escrito en n&merosos li$ros al respecto" Por s&p&esto ?&e incl&so enel derecho constit&cional, el precedente es &n determinante importante de &na decisi%n/&dicial y limita la li$ertad del /&e0 para formar &n concepto constit&cional en s& propiateora del concepto moral del c&al deriva" Pero los casos ?&e re?&ieren n&evos /&icios sonm:s frec&entes en el derecho constit&cional" >n las decisiones /&diciales ?&e se toman en elderecho privado los casos n&evos son difciles, eneralmente, de$ido a ?&e ellos seenc&entran en las fronteras de lo ?&e se est: decidiendo" >n la decisi%n /&dicial de as&ntosconstit&cionales, por otra parte, los casos son difciles a men&do no por?&e se enc&entran enlos $ordes de la doctrina, sino por?&e c&estionan los f&ndamentos s&$yacentes de ladoctrina" -a pre&nta de si el derecho a la li$ertad de e+presi%n, apropiadamente entendido,protee el len&a/e carado de odio, ofensivo o ins&ltante a minoras perse&idas, pore/emplo, o si &na cierta prohi$ici%n de tal e+presi%n es necesaria en &na sociedaden&inamente democr:tica, re?&iere refle+ionar so$re al&nos de los as&ntos m:s prof&ndosde la moralidad poltica" >l precedente es menos percepti$le en tales casos, y los /&eces ?&e

piensan ?&e el precedente es incorrecto, por?&e limita inde$idamente los derechosindivid&ales m:s importantes, tienen menos ra0%n para respetarlo ?&e los /&eces ?&e piensan?&e aln precedente esta$lecido en el Derecho 3ons&et&dinario 'ommon Law( esta$ae?&ivocado"

De$emos considerar, finamente, &na tercera forma del ar&mento, ?&e ha tenido sin&larimportancia en el derecho constit&cional, sen el c&al los /&eces y los fil%sofos tienendiferentes o$/etivos" >sta forma comien0a concediendo ?&e los principales conceptosconstit&cionales de la Primera y la Decimoc&arta >nmienda, por e/emplo, son de hecho losconceptos ?&e los fil%sofos han est&diado" Pero insiste ?&e los /&eces no de$en tener elprop%sito de encontrar la me/or teora de la responsa$ilidad, de la li$ertad, o de lo ?&e

sinifica persona, en virt&d de lo c&al sera conce$i$le ?&e apelar:n a la ay&da de losfil%sofos para ?&e las encontraran, sino ?&e m:s $ien insiste ?&e los /&eces de$en tener elprop%sito de encontrar c&:l era la me/or teora de ?&ienes hicieron estas ideas parte delpensamiento /&rdico, lo c&al es &na c&esti%n de historia, no de filosofa"

>ste modelo de $&scar la Hintenci%n oriinalI en la decisi%n /&dicial en as&ntosconstit&cionales, es menos pop&lar ahora entre er&ditos del derecho constit&cional de lo ?&e&na ve0 f&e, y s&s o$/eciones son $ien conocidas" Pero incl&so si acept:ramos el modelo, noofrecera ninn escape del dilema ?&e descri$, por?&e hara el derecho constit&cional m-sentrela0ado con c&estiones filos%ficas, no menos" -os /&eces ?&e aceptan el modelo de$enafrontar &n con/&nto de pre&ntas ?&e est:n entre las c&estiones ?&e los de/an m:s perple/osen filosofa de la mente, filosofa del len&a/e y filosofa poltica" Podemos sinificar cosasm&y diferentes c&ando nos referimos, como &n rec&rso interpretativo, a la teora, laintenci%n o la comprensi%n de &n e+tenso r&po de personas tales como los ?&e hicieroncon/&ntamente la 3onstit&ci%n y s&s enmiendas" Pero alo ?&e no podemos indicarcomprensi$lemente es la teora, la intenci%n o la comprensi%n ?&e todos ellos compartieronLla mayora de ellos pres&mi$lemente no tenan en a$sol&to teora so$re la protecci%n de lali$ertad de e+presi%n, por e/emplo, y ?&ienes la tenan, pres&mi$lemente discrepa$an entreellos"


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B>ntre las posi$ilidades interpretativas restantes, c&:l de$emos adoptarC Jncl&so si f&=ramosa eleir, ar$itrariamente, &n individ&o partic&lar c&yas opiniones aceptaramos comodecisivas @diamos, el redactor 'draftsman( ?&e escri$i% la mayor parte de la cl:&s&la enc&esti%n, si al&no lo hi0o@ n&estras dific&ltades filos%ficas apenas comen0aran"&ponamos ?&e desc&$rimos 8lo c&al parece $astante pro$a$le, dado el len&a/e ?&eemple% ?&e el redactor principal de la cl:&s&la de i&al protecci%n contenida en la>nmienda D=cimo c&arta, pretenda ?&e la ente de$e ser i&al ante la ley de ac&erdo con lame0orcomprensi%n de lo ?&e eso sinifica, y no de ac&erdo con s& propia comprensi%n enese entonces 8la c&al el podra ha$er considerado como incompleta BG&= respeto a esaintenci%n oriinal se re?&erira en estas circ&nstanciasC BUn /&e0 contempor:neo estaracomprometido con la intenci%n oriinal para interpretar la cl:&s&la de ac&erdo con lo ?&e elredactor act&almente intenta$a prom&larC i es as, B?&= no lo remitira a la filosofapoltica ?&e la doctrina de la intenci%n oriinal prometa evitarC BNo de$emos pre&ntar,para decidir c&estiones como =stas, por &u/los /&eces de$en mirar a la intenci%n oriinalC-a resp&esta, podra decirse, descansa en la democracia o en el >stado de Derecho ' rule oflaw(" Pero de$emos eleir entre las concepciones rivales de esos ideales nota$lementea$stractos para decidir ?&= resp&estas p&eden ofrecer a las pre&ntas ?&e nos conf&nden @y

este e/ercicio nos invol&crara en c&estiones filos%ficas an m:s comple/as@" BG&=, desp&=sde todo, es la democraciaC Bo el >stado de DerechoC

III) In%&in& e in&uicin

7s, la primera r&ta de escape @?&e, desp&=s de todo, los /&eces y los fil%sofos no comparten&n tema y &n o$/etivo comn@ es &na il&si%n, al menos para los conceptos /&rdicos m:simportantes, incl&yendo los propios conceptos constit&cionales" Por lo tanto de$emosconsiderar otra forma m:s am$iciosa de near la primera parte del dilema ?&e he constr&ido"

Podramos recomendar, primero, ?&e los /&eces decidan c&estiones filos%ficas &iados por

s& instinto primario o por s&s reacciones viscerales m:s $ien ?&e cons&ltando a los fil%sofos">n los casos de s&icidio asistido a la &prema 3orte se le re?&iri% decidir si hay &nadiferencia moralmente relevante entre &n doctor ?&e retira el soporte artificial de la vida de&n paciente deseoso de morir @?&e la 3orte, en efecto, ha sostenido ?&e los estados p&edenpermitir@ y &n doctor ?&e ay&da al s&icidio de &na forma m:s activa prescri$iendo pldoras?&e le permitiran a &n paciente aca$ar con s& vida por s mismo, por e/emplo, o d:ndole a&n paciente ?&e r&ea por s& propia m&erte e incapa0 de tomar pldoras, &na inyecci%n letal"Bi &n >stado p&ede no prohi$ir lo primero, tiene el derecho de prohi$ir lo se&ndoC >se es&n aspecto de &na anti&a disc&si%n filos%fica @Bc&:ndo y ?&= tan diferente es de/ar morir aal&ien, moralmente diferente de matarloC@ y los maistrados de la &prema 3orte podranha$er cons&ltado la literat&ra filos%fica e intentado e+plicar de ?&= lado de la disc&si%n se&$icaron y por?&=" Por s&p&esto ?&e m&chos ci&dadanos ?&e tomaron el otro lado de ladisc&si%n, $ien podran no ha$er sido convencidos por el ar&mento de la 3orte, pero ellosha$ran sa$ido ?&e los /&eces de la &prema 3orte tenan d&das so$re el caso desde s&propio p&nto de vista, y ha$ran intentado e+plicar por?&= lo encontraron poco pers&asivo"De ac&erdo con la s&erencia ?&e estamos considerando ahora, sin em$aro, no de$en haceresto" De$en inorar a los fil%sofos y e+poner simplemente s& reacci%n inmediata y noest&diada so$re el tema en disc&si%n"

>l maistrado de la &prema 3orte .yron Ohite, di/o &na ve0 ?&e a&n?&e no podra definir


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la o$scenidad, lo sa$ra en c&anto est&viera frente a ella" N&estra n&eva s&erenciaenerali0a esa estrateiaL los /&eces no de$en intentar anali0ar conceptos o ideas filos%ficasdifciles, sino ?&e solamente de$en informar s& reacci%n instintiva" i &n /&e0 int&itivamentesiente ?&e le es permitido a &n doctor retirar el soporte artificial de la vida c&ando &npaciente se lo e+ie, pero no prescri$irle pldoras letales, no de$e preoc&parse so$re sipodra defender esa distinci%n mediante &n ar&mento ra0onado, sino ?&e apenas de$eafirmar ?&e es as como lo siente, o como la mayora de ente siente, o como al&ien delmismo r&po siente"

>sta s&erencia ha tenido al&nos distin&idos proponentes /&diciales" *liver Oendell)olmes di/o ?&e /&0% si &n procedimiento &sado por la polica para o$tener evidenciaviola$a la cl:&s&la del de$ido proceso, pre&ntando si tal procedimiento lo haca sentirna&seas" 8>sa p&do ha$er sido la f&ente del adaio del as llamado Hrealista /&rdicoI de ?&ela /&sticia depende de lo ?&e el /&e0 desay&n%" Pero este es &no de los aspectos m:svaliosos de la decisi%n /&dicial @en efecto, creo ?&e la leitimaci%n de la decisi%n /&dicialcomo instr&mento de o$ierno, depende de esto@ ?&e los /&eces deciden con $ase enra0ones y e+plican s&s ra0ones" BG&= 8con e+cepci%n del deseo de ahorrarse &na tarea difcil

podra /&stificar a los /&eces al decidir casos cr&cialmente importantes en &na formaaparentemente arroante o ap:ticaC

P&edo pensar en dos ar&mentos, pero am$os, de n&evo, es m:s lo ?&e s&scitan ?&e lo ?&eimpiden la formaci%n de $arreras filos%ficas, por?&e am$os dependen de posicionesfilos%ficas altamente controversiales" i =stas son las ra0ones ?&e nosotros acordamos parae+plicar por ?&= los /&eces no necesitan ser fil%sofos, entonces los /&eces tendran ?&econvertirse en fil%sofos para entenderlos" >l primero de estos dos ar&mentos se aplicapartic&larmente a los conceptos ?&e he tomado como mis e/emplos m:s frec&entesL losconceptos morales ?&e fi&ran en las decisiones constit&cionales" >l ar&mento descansaso$re &na tesis filos%fica llamada Hint&icionismoI, la c&al sostiene ?&e las personas @o, en

c&al?&ier caso, las personas correctas@ tienen fac&ltades nat&rales ?&e les permiten int&irdirectamente la verdad so$re c&estiones morales, sin apoyarse en c&al?&ier ar&mento orefle+i%n" 8De ac&erdo con al&nas versiones del int&icionismo, la refle+i%n y el ar&mentode hecho apaa o entorpece el sentido de /&sticia" >l int&icionismo no es act&almenteaceptado por los fil%sofos morales, al menos en la rama anloamericana de ese campo, peropor s&p&esto ?&e de ah no se si&e ?&e es e?&ivocado" .ien podra ser revivido en &nad=cada o &n da y as convertirse en la preferencia filos%fica del mes" in em$aro, estoenfrenta serias dific&ltades ?&e parecen descalificarlo por?&e servira de /&stificaci%n a los/&eces ?&e no ?&isieran dar ra0ones" >l ar&mento depende de &na s&p&esta capacidadh&mana intrnseca para la int&ici%n no refle+iva y no ar&mentada, so$re &n modelo depercepci%n sensorial@ pero es &n total misterio c%mo los hechos morales podran interact&arconce$i$lemente con &n sistema nervioso h&mano" Y s&poner ?&e los seres h&manos comoespecie tienen esta capacidad entra en contradicci%n con la ran diversidad y los conflictosen las opiniones morales entre ellos" -os int&icionistas insisten en ?&e la perspectiva deal&nas personas est: n&$lada" Pero creemos ?&e no tenemos forma de decidir c&:l visi%nest: n&$lada @ c&:les capacidades son defect&osas para la int&ici%n @, e+cepto pre&ntandosi est:n de ac&erdo con nosotros so$re las c&estiones morales, y esto tam$i=n pareceinsatisfactorio"

>l se&ndo ar&mento a favor de instr&ir a los /&eces a decidir con $ase en /&icios


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instintivos, inmediatos o irrefle+ivos, tam$i=n aplica con &na f&er0a partic&lar a losconceptos morales" >ste es el Hescepticismo moralI, ?&e declara ?&e no hay resp&estacorrecta a las as llamadas c&estiones filos%ficas, como en ?&= consiste la personalidad, lali$ertad, la i&aldad o la democracia, y ?&e los /&eces por lo tanto no de$en derrochartiempo investiando cada &na" P&esto ?&e c&al?&ier resp&esta es s%lo &na elecci%n, con nadam:s prof&ndo ?&e la f&ndamente, los /&eces desempean me/or s& la$or respondiendoinmediatamente las pre&ntas ?&e les preoc&panL ahorran tiempo y enera para otrosas&ntos" 8)olmes, el a&tor de la pr&e$a de la na&sea 'puke test(, f&e &n apasionado ycomprometido esc=ptico moral, y ran parte de s& vida y de s&s escritos son e+plica$les s%loc&ando consideramos en toda s& amplit&d este hecho" De n&evo, como di/e, este ar&mentopara inorar la filosofa depende de &na controvertida posici%n filos%fica" 8Desde mi p&ntode vista, es &na posici%n indefendi$le y, de hecho en s&s formas m:s pop&lares ahora, estam$i=n incoherente1" -a mayora de los /&eces no son como )olmesL no son esc=pticosmorales, y el ar&mento de ?&e p&eden inorar la filosofa por?&e el esceptiscismo escorrecto, no les parecer: &na me/or ra0%n a ellos de lo ?&e me parece a m y, espero, ?&e a&stedes tam$i=n"

I1) 2ra0#a&i%#

)asta ahora hemos sondeados y descartado dos vas de escape del dilema ?&e descri$,neando la primera parte de tal dilema @?&e los /&eces de$en ser fil%sofos@" No podemosescapar diciendo ?&e la historia ha formado los conceptos /&rdicos de la relaci%n ca&sal, delo ?&e sinifica persona o de la i&aldad de tal manera ?&e ahora son conceptos diferentesde a?&ellos est&diados por los fil%sofos" -a historia de hecho ha formado los conceptos/&rdicos, pero si&en estando a$iertos al desarrollo y los /&eces desarrollando los conceptosde$en hacerse las mismas pre&ntas ?&e se hacen los fil%sofos"


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pramatismo y s& hermana incl&so m:s de moda, la socio$ioloa, est&vieron en $oa atrav=s del paisa/e acad=mico por &n tiempo, y lo si&en estando en las Fac&ltades deDerecho donde las modas calientes se v&elven ti$ias y l&eo m&eren" Pero en el act&alconte+to, por lo menos, el pramatismo es vaco y no ofrece nin&na ay&da para escapar den&estro dilema" >l pramatismo nos dice ?&e los /&eces p&eden de/ar a &n lado losrompeca$e0as a$stractos so$re el a$orto y pre&ntar s%lo si las consec&encias ser:n me/oressi se les proh$e a las m&/eres ?&e se les practi?&en a$ortos" Pero no podemos decidir si lasconsec&encias de &na decisi%n constit&cional son me/ores ?&e las consec&encias de &nadecisi%n diferente sin confrontar, de n&evo, las mismas c&estiones filos%ficas ?&e elpramatismo espera evitar"

i el a$orto est: constit&cionalmente proteido, as&mamos, ha$r: m:s a$ortos y menosm&/eres c&yas vidas hayan sido marchitadas con &n hi/o indeseado" 8Por s&p&esto ?&etam$i=n ha$r:n m&chas otras consec&encias, al&nas m:s difciles de predecir, pero =stas sonlas m:s destaca$les" B>stas consec&encias $ien conocidas, consideradas por ellas mismas,sinifican ?&e las cosas han ido me/orC, Bo peorC B3%mo podemos decidir so$re a$ortar sindecidir antes, en efecto, si el a$orto es &n homicidioC i esto es as, entonces las cosas no

han ido me/or, no importa c&an m&cho pare0can ir de otras maneras" &p%nase, de otraparte, ?&e los tri$&nales hayan decidido ?&e &n a$orto no est: constit&cionalmenteproteido, y m&chos estados hayan contin&ado declar:ndolo criminal" -a c&esti%nlentamente se desvanecera de la controversia p$lica, y cada &no ha$ra aceptado &naposici%n en la c&al, por e/emplo, las m&/eres con s&ficientes medios econ%micos ha$ranpodido via/ar entre estados donde el a$orto f&era permitido y a?&ellas ?&e no podran ha$ertenido s&s hi/os sin reclamos" Desde &n p&nto de vista, las cosas ha$ran ido m&cho me/orLha$ra ha$ido menos enfrentamiento p$lico" Pero no podramos decidir si las cosash&$ieran f&ncionado me/or en con/&nto sin decidir si las m&/eres a las ?&e se les ha$anneado a$ortos, o hecho inc&rrir en randes costos monetarios y pro$lemas para lorarlo,f&eron tratadas in/&stamente" Por s&p&esto ?&e podemos pensar ?&e el tratamiento in/&sto

para al&nos depende de si la com&nidad, en s& con/&nto, es m:s feli0 8o est: menosdividida, por lo menos como res&ltado de near a$ortos" Pero si tenemos el derecho apensar ?&e depende an de otro de$ate moral de alcance filos%fico, a sa$er si el &tilitarismoes verdad" 7s, el pramatismo es &na post&ra vaca ?&e no llea a nada por?&e la pr&e$a?&e propone @Bson $&enas las consec&enciasC @ divide a las personas precisamente por&uediscrepan so$re las me/ores resp&estas a las pre&ntas ?&e el pramatismo intenta evitar"

1) E$ nue3 4r#a$i%#

-a sorprendente pop&laridad de esa teora vaca 8el pramatismo dem&estra an m:s ?&e eldilema ?&e descri$ al principio es prof&ndo y preoc&pante" Dado ?&e realmente cal% entrelos a$oados norteamericanos hace al&nas d=cadas, ese positivismo /&rdico formalista es&na visi%n desesperadamente inadec&ada de lo ?&e hacen los /&eces norteamericanos, entanto han temido afrontar la alternativaL tomar decisiones /&diciales re?&iere /&icios so$rec&estiones morales tan prof&ndas y polari0antes ?&e son el o$/eto del prof&ndo y contin&oest&dio y divisi%n filos%fica" Parece horroroso ?&e los /&eces no eleidos posean el poder deimponer a los litiantes y la naci%n &n con/&nto de resp&estas a tales pre&ntas tanpersistentes" Pero la idea de ?&e los /&eces p&eden decidir casos difciles de al&na manera,incl&yendo difciles casos constit&cionales, cam$iando s& enfo?&e de principioscontroversiales a hechos demostra$les y s&s consec&encias, es precisamente otro e/emplo de


10/27

la lamenta$le disposici%n de al&nos er&ditos /&rdicos a enterrar s&s ca$e0as en la arena" Yaes hora de ?&e la profesi%n /&rdica confronte a$iertamente el hecho de ?&e los ci&dadanosnorteamericanos est:n prof&ndamente divididos en c&estiones morales, ?&e las decisiones/&diciales inevita$lemente s&ponen tales c&estiones, y ?&e los /&eces tienen laresponsa$ilidad de admitir esto y de e+plicar por ?&= han tomado c&al?&iera de lasposiciones ?&e tienen"

in em$aro, hay otra posi$ilidad" i el derecho tal como est: instit&ido @como la historia yla pr:ctica lo han conformado@ ira so$re conceptos de dimensiones filos%ficas, si todos losvariados rec&rsos ?&e p&di=ramos constr&ir para permitirles a los /&eces decidir los casos sininvol&crarse ellos mismos en controversias intermina$les so$re si esos conceptos de$enfallar, si encontramos poco realista e inacepta$le ?&e de$en convertirse ellos mismos enfil%sofos, entonces nos ?&eda solamente &n rec&rsoL podemos convertir el derecho tal comoest: en &n me/or derecho adaptado a &nos /&eces m:s disciplinados y menos am$iciosos" Deesta manera, de$emos volver, finalmente, a la opci%n escapatoria m:s radical ?&e hanofrecido, la c&al ha sido llamada el Hn&evo formalismoI" eremy .entham, ?&e odi% lainstit&ci%n ?&e llam% H&e0 y compaaI 8Jue2 1 o", ale% ?&e el poder de los /&eces para

act&ar como fil%sofos de$e ser contenido mediante la codificaci%n de toda la ley, de modo?&e las decisiones /&diciales realmente f&eran mec:nicas" 7&n?&e esto le pare0casorprendente a &n a$oado de mi eneraci%n, el esprit& de .entham est: m:s vivo ahora?&e hace dos silos" )ay &n ent&siasmo creciente por &n sistema /&rdico ?&e posi$ilite ?&ela decisi%n /&dicial se v&elva cada ve0 m:s mec:nica"

>ncontramos este n&evo ent&siasmo en la o$ra de variados est&diosos y de /&eces ?&edifieren entre ellos de m&chas manerasL l primer imp&lsopara esa doctrina f&e sem:ntico e interpretativoL s&s defensores insistieron en ?&e la3onstit&ci%n, tal como est:, consiste en la comprensi%n de los conte+tos de los conceptosmorales ?&e se enc&entran en la 3onstit&ci%n, no en la me/or comprensi%n de estosconceptos" -a versi%n del n&evo formalismo no es sem:ntica sino estrat=ica, sin em$aro,insta a los /&eces a $&scar &na intenci%n oriinal, no de la ra0%n positiva ?&e representa lo?&e realmente sinifica la 3onstit&ci%n, sino de la ra0%n neativa ?&e los /&eces ?&ienesdeciden casos de esa forma ?&e no necesiten desplear s&s propias convicciones morales ofilos%ficas" 3omo ya he ar&mentado, esta estrateia de$e fallar en s& metaL no es &na formade permitir ?&e los /&eces escapen de la filosofa, sino de invol&crarlos m:s prof&ndamentedentro de la controversia filos%fica"


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Pero de$emos considerar los m=ritos del n&evo formalismo como estrateia eneral" Nop&ede ser &na ra0%n para aceptar el rereso a la /&rispr&dencia mec:nica 'mechanical0urisprudence( ?&e precisamente relevar: a los /&eces de tomar decisiones difciles ocontroversiales" >sto permitira ?&e la cola meneara el perroL primero de$emos decidir con?&e clase de estr&ct&ra /&rdica deseamos ser o$ernados, y l&eo determinamos ?&= rolde$en desempear los /&eces en tal estr&ct&ra" Podemos tener al&nas ra0ones para ?&ererser o$ernados por &n r&po de relas m:s mec:nicas, y estas p&eden ser $&enas ra0ones enal&nas :reas del derecho, partic&larmente en las del Derecho privado" Podemos creer ?&etra$a/amos me/or en estas :reas pidi=ndoles a los /&eces ?&e limiten s&s intervenciones en losas&ntos de la ente a lo estrictamente necesario $a/o las tersas leyes ?&e &n c&erpoleislativo eleido ha creado, de/:ndole a la leislat&ra decidir c&ando al&nas clarificacioneso cam$ios en estas relas sean desea$les" in em$aro, no estoy pers&adido de esto y creo?&e perderamos m:s de lo ?&e anaramos e+tendiendo el domino del derecho en el c&al lasdecisiones /&diciales son mec:nicas"

3&ando volvemos al tema de mis e/emplos principales @derecho constit&cional@ mis

o$/eciones hacia el n&evo formalismo se enca&0an m:s prof&ndamenteL derri$aran el t:citos&p&esto de toda n&estra empresa constit&cional, c&al es ?&e los ci&dadanos tienen derechos?&e de$en ser proteidos de los cam$ios y de los veredictos a&to interesados de lasinstit&ciones mayoritarias" 3omo di/e antes, la vie/a esc&ela de la intenci%n oriinal as&macomo &n as&nto de sem:ntica y de historia, ?&e esos derechos est:n limitados a c%mo loscomprendieron los hom$res de estado fallecidos tiempo atr:s" -a vie/a esc&ela de laintenci%n oriinal crey% ?&e res&arda$a el ac&erdo 3onstit&cional como realmente es" -osn&evos formalistas en el derecho constit&cional no hacen tal s&posici%nR s&s ar&mentos sonrevol&cionarios, no interpretativos" 7ceptan ?&e el cam$io ?&e proponen dismin&ir:nota$lemente el poder de los /&eces para hacer c&mplir lo ?&e consideran derechosconstit&cionales de las personas" Ksa es s& meta y esta$lecen la doctrina de la intenci%n

oriinal s%lo como &na manera conveniente para llevar a ca$o ese cam$io, mediante laret%rica a la ?&e est: acost&m$rada el p&e$lo" -a ret%rica hace ?&e el cam$io pare0ca menosradical de lo ?&e es realmente"

BG&= /&stificaciones podramos encontrar para esa dram:tica transformaci%n de n&estrapr:cticaC Podramos decir, primero, ?&e el c&erpo leislativo har: &n me/or tra$a/o ?&e el?&e hacen los /&eces identificando y haciendo c&mplir los verdaderos derechosconstit&cionalesL ?&e el c&erpo leislativo ser: me/or en la filosofa ?&e lo ?&e son los/&eces" Pero eso es poco convincente" * podra decirse en se&ndo l&ar, ?&e n&estra3onstit&ci%n, tal como est:, no es democr:tica, y ?&e el cam$io en el poder me/orar:n&estra democracia" Pero esa afirmaci%n descansa en &na pec&liar definici%n de democracia@?&e sinifica solamente la vol&ntad de la mayora@ y esa afirmaci%n es en s misma a/ena an&estra historia" >stas no parecen ra0ones adec&adas para pretender ?&e n&estra3onstit&ci%n sea s%lo &n accidente hist%rico, /&sto la codificaci%n de las opiniones polticasconcretas y de los /&icios de moda entre la elite del silo VTJJJ y de los hom$res de estado ylos polticos del silo VJV" >sto sera &na traici%n de n&estra herencia poltica, incl&yendo&na traici%n de lo ?&e los hom$res de estado y los polticos pensaron ?&e esta$an creando"Para $ien o para mal @se&ramente para $ien@ creemos ?&e n&estra leislaci%n en eneral, y?&e n&estra 3onstit&ci%n en partic&lar, descansa so$re principios y no so$re &n accidentehist%rico, y sera &n ran traspi=s en n&estro propio entendimiento colectivo ren&nciar a esa


12/27

idea ahora"

Jncl&so no podemos citar la a&toridad de .entham para /&stificar tal cam$io, de$ido a todass&s afirmaciones so$re la codificaci%n y por toda s& desconfian0a en los /&eces" P&esto ?&e=l tena &na ran filosofa @el &tilitarismo@ ?&e, al menos desde s& p&nto de vista, serarespetada insistiendo ?&e los leisladores disean relas ?&e no contienen t=rminos moralesa$stractos, sino ?&e apenas estip&lan las prohi$iciones, sol&ciones y castios ?&e &n c:lc&lo&tilitario $ien reali0ado aplicara a los actos partic&lares" >l &tilitarismo es s%lo otracontroversia filos%fica, y adem:s poco atractiva" 7 menos ?&e deseemos acoerla, o al&naotra forma red&ccionista de consec&encialismo, no de$emos tratar de eliminar los /&icios delas refle+iones de n&estros /&eces so$re lo ?&e re?&iere la /&sticia leal en casos individ&ales"

1I) Ac&i&ud 4i$%4ica / -r4undidad 4i$%4ica

Tolvemos al comien0o de este tra$a/o" N&estra leislaci%n le pide a los /&eces ?&e tomendecisiones so$re c&estiones ?&e han sido est&diadas con ran c&idado por fil%sofos dediferentes clases y esc&elas, y no podemos pensar en ninn cam$io acepta$le en n&estras

e+pectativas hacia los /&eces, o en la estr&ct&ra o el car:cter de n&estro derecho, ?&e altereese hecho" De$emos e+aminar ahora la se&nda parte del dilema ?&e e+p&se Bpueden los/&eces ser fil%sofosC De$emos tener c&idado, al responder esta pre&nta, para evitarc&al?&ier caricat&ra de lo ?&e esto sinificara" era a$s&rdo s&erirle a los /&eces ?&epidieran permiso para a&sentarse de s& tra$a/o con el o$/etivo de o$tener Doctorados8Ph"D" en filosofa, y ?&e l&eo a s& rereso al tri$&nal, ?&e escri$ieran opiniones /&diciales?&e p&dieran ser p&$licadas en revistas especiali0adas en filosofa" Nada similar a estooc&rri%, sin em$aro, c&ando los /&eces f&eron m:s conscientes de la importancia de laeconoma formal en el an:lisis /&rdico" -os /&eces no se volvieron e+pertos en el estado delarte de la econometra o del an:lisis matem:tico del comportamiento econ%mico, y sinem$aro s&s opiniones f&eron m:s sensi$les y sofisticadas en aspectos econ%micos"

No necesitamos pedirle m:s a la filosofa" BPero ?&= mostrara &na mayor sensi$ilidadcreciente so$re el temaC Para empe0ar, los /&eces de$en entender ?&e los conceptos ?&emane/an @responsa$ilidad, sinificado, intenci%n, i&aldad, li$ertad y democracia, pore/emplo@ son conceptos dif3ciles, ?&e estamos le/os de resolver o tener claro c&:l es lame/or posici%n o ac&erdo so$re ellos, y ?&= sera &n error pensar ?&e n&estra leislaci%n,n&estra historia o n&estra c&lt&ra, ha acordado &na resp&esta disponi$le y ?&e no re?&iere de&lterior /&stificaci%n para &so de los /&eces" De$en entender ?&e todos los res&midose+pedientes ?&e aca$amos de considerar @int&icionismo y pramatismo, tanto como elformalismo@ son il&siones, y ?&e de$en eleir entre los principios rivales ?&e se ofrecen parae+plicar conceptos constit&cionales, y ?&e de$en estar listos para presentar y defender s&selecciones" >stos podran parecer s%lo avances limitados, pero de todos modos seran m&yimportantes"

BG&= podramos esperar ra0ona$lemente m:s all: de esoC De$emos esperar &n cam$io enn&estras $ases c&lt&rales ?&e determine lo ?&e los /&eces @y m:s an, lo a$oados@consideren relevantes en los ar&mentos /&rdicos"


13/27

posiciones, con el fin de presentarlas en el tri$&nal" J&almente, la c&lt&ra de$e acoer elmaterial filos%fico pertinente como relevante" -os a$oados ?&e de$aten la comprensi%ncorrecta de la cl:&s&la de i&al protecci%n, por e/emplo, de$en animarse a constr&ir ydistin&ir las concepciones de i&aldad, y a disc&tir por?&= &na m:s ?&e otra es laconcepci%n correcta para entender la f&er0a de la cl:&s&la" No ?&iero decir ?&e ellos o los/&eces a ?&ienes se dirien de$en citar o copiar los ar&mentos de aln fil%sofo enpartic&lar" -os a$oados entrenados de forma correcta p&eden conce$ir s&s propiosar&mentos filos%ficos, los c&ales podran ser m&y diferentes de los presentados por &nfil%sofo acad=mico, y los /&eces, por s& parte, p&eden valorar esos ar&mentos sin tenerse?&e s&/etar a &n fil%sofo determinado" in em$aro no sera irra0ona$le esperar ?&e los/&eces y a$oados por i&al t&vieran cierta familiaridad con al menos las principales esc&elascontempor:neas de la filosofa /&rdica, moral y poltica, por?&e eso parece indispensa$lepara &na apreciaci%n adec&ada de c&al?&ier ar&mento filos%fico so$re el ?&e de$anmeditar" Podramos pensar en &n /&e0 constit&cional desc&idado ?&e no t&viera &nacomprensi%n mnima de los historiadores principales de la 3onvenci%n 3onstit&cional y las>nmiendas de la &erra 3ivil" BPor ?&= no de$emos insistir tam$i=n ?&e los /&ecesconstit&cionales est=n enterados de las o$ras de ohn #awls o )"-"7" )art, por e/emploC

Por s&p&esto ?&e no ?&iero decir ?&e los /&eces de$en considerarse ellos mismos como s&sdiscp&los" G&iero decir e+actamente lo contrarioL ?&e de$en tener &na comprensi%ns&ficiente del tra$a/o de los principales fil%sofos en las ramas pertinentes de la filosofa paraleer a tales fil%sofos crticamente"

De$o repetir, sin entrar en de$ates, ?&e no estoy s&poniendo ?&e c&al?&ier incremento de lasofisticaci%n /&dicial en la filosofa eliminara la controversia entre los /&eces" B3%mo podradarse si los mismos fil%sofos discrepan tan dram:ticamente entre ellosC Pero se p&edered&cir la controversia" >s &na an=cdota $ien conocida ?&e al&nos maistrados de la&prema 3orte ?&e f&eron nom$rados por?&e eran a&t=nticos conservadores, tales comoOarren, .rennan o o&ter, res&ltaron ser m:s li$erales de lo esperado, y ?&e al&nos

nom$rados por?&e eran en&inos li$erales, como Frankf&rter, res&ltaron ser m:sconservadores" -a refle+i%n filos%fica pone a pr&e$a los s&p&estos ende$les, y prod&ce porlo tanto m:s cam$ios, ?&e c&al?&ier otra clase de refle+iones" No estoy promoviendo &namayor sofisticaci%n filos%fica para ?&e elimine o red&0ca la controversia, sino para ?&e lahaa 8si &sted perdonara la piedad m:s respeta$le, o al menos m:s il&minada" B3%mo nop&ede ay&dar si los /&eces c&ando discrepan so$re lo ?&e es realmente la democracia, sonconscientes de las dimensiones filos%ficas de s& desac&erdo, y tienen al&na familiaridad conlas ideas de las personas ?&e han dedicado m&cho tiempo y paciencia a p&lir la controversiaC3omo mnimo, de$e ay&darles y ay&darnos a entender so$re lo ?&e realmente discrepan"

1II) Fi$%4"a / educacin .ur"dica

>stoy ha$lando como si nada de lo ?&e espero ver todava e+istiera, y eso es incorrecto" )ayya &n ran consenso de lorar &na mayor sofisticaci%n filos%fica de la ?&e sola ha$er, tantoentre a$oados y /&eces, como en la ed&caci%n /&rdica" -os maistrados de la &prema3orte, .reyer y tevens, para nom$rar dos /&eces prominentes, han citado fil%sofos en s&sconceptos en aos recientes" )ay fil%sofos acad=micos profesionales en las principalesfac&ltades de derecho norteamericanas, incl&yendo las &niversidades de New York, Yale y3hicao"


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eneral de lo ?&e solan estar"

i la profesi%n va a crecer constantemente m:s consciente de la importancia de la filosofa enlas decisiones /&diciales, la presencia de este tema en la ed&caci%n /&rdica de$eincrementarse" De$en ha$er m:s c&rsos introd&ctorios y avan0ados en filosofa poltica ymoral s&stantiva en m:s fac&ltades de derecho" in em$aro, la ed&caci%n /&rdica seenc&entra atestada de c&rsosL hay ya demasiado para tres aos, lo ?&e sinifica ?&e m&chosest&diantes no se sentir:n capaces de aprovechar la oport&nidad de tomar m:s materiasfilos%ficas electivas ofrecidas" Pero tam$i=n las fac&ltades de derecho de$en proc&rarintrod&cir a la filosofa dentro de los c&rsos /&rdicos m:s $:sicos" Un c&rso so$reresponsa$ilidad /&rdica e+tracontract&al, por e/emplo, formara a los est&diantes m:s en lasteoras filos%ficas rivales so$re la responsa$ilidad moral del dao, tal como de las teorasecon%micas rivales so$re las consec&encias de la responsa$ilidad /&rdica e+tracontract&al enlos costos totales de los accidentes" >n las clases de derecho constit&cional de$en est&diarsediferentes concepciones de la democracia y de los diversos roles ?&e la comprensi%n de lasideas so$re la li$ertad, la i&aldad y la /&sticia social, /&aran en la interpretaci%nconstit&cional"

No teno la menor d&da de ha$er ofendido a m&chos a$oados en esta defensa de lafilosofa, y ahora me arrieso a ofender a los fil%sofos tam$i=n" De mi parte, pienso ?&e nos%lo la filosofa poltica y moral s&stantiva son temas apropiados para incl&ir de diferentesformas dentro de los planes de est&dio de las Fac&ltades de Derecho, sino ?&e las fac&ltadesde derecho p&eden ser &n me0or l&ar para reali0ar tales est&dios ?&e c&al?&ier otraFac&ltad en las &niversidades, incl&yendo los departamentos de filosofa" Por?&e en &nconte+to /&rdico entendemos partic&larmente $ien las implicaciones act&ales de diferentesprincipios morales y polticosL ale/amos los an&ncios 'the staples( de m&chos c&rsos defilosofa @historias fant:sticas so$re carr&a/es f&itivos ?&e podran matar a dos o a veintepersonas atadas a diferentes secciones de &n riel@ y consideramos las c&estiones morales en

conte+tos cam&flados y reales, tales como la economa farmac=&tica ?&e ata /&ntos losintereses de investiaci%n, comercio y el dolor en la vida corriente 8para citar &ne/emplo" No hay oport&nidad para el imperialismo territorial so$re en esta materiaL lasc&estiones morales han sido est&diadas con &na delicade0a e+trema en casi todas las :reasacad=micas, de la poesa a la medicina" Pienso, sin em$aro, ?&e eso trae a los fil%sofos a lasfac&ltades de derecho, y los anima a pensar y a ensear /&nto a los a$oados, es entoncespartic&larmente fr&ctfero para am$as disciplinas"

1III) 2ara 4ina$i5ar

)e estado ha$lando so$re el poder de las ideas, y podra estar $ien, o casi, terminarrecordando la e+hortaci%n del poeta alem:n )eineL =l advirti% ?&e inoramos para n&estropropio rieso el poder ?&e tienen las ideas filos%ficas para cam$iar la historia" Pero enrealidad ?&iero terminar con la ?&e considero &na e+presi%n m:s act&al, por?&e p&edores&mir mi conse/o a mi profesi%n, y partic&larmente a s&s /&eces en dos frases ?&e esperom&estren &na f&er0a en la act&alidadL ean p&lcros 'ome lean( y T&=lvanse realistas '4etReal(" ean p&lcros con el papel ?&e los conceptos filos%ficos realmente /&ean en elimponente diseo y en los e+?&isitos detalles de n&estra estr&ct&ra /&rdica" T&=lvanserealistas so$re el d&ro tra$a/o ?&e afrontar:n para c&mplir la promesa de esos conceptos"


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New York Council for the HumanitiesScholar of the Year Lecture (2000)Must Our Judges Be Philosophers?CanThey Be Philosophers?

Ronald Dworkin

Ronald Dworkinis a professor in both the School of Law and the Philosophy Department at NewYork University, where he has taught since 1975. Dworkin received a pair of bachelor degreesfrom Harvard and Oxford Universities, followed by an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He thenclerked for Judge Learned Hand, was associated with the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, andtaught at Yale University Law School between 1962 and 1969. From 1969 to 1998 he wasProfessor of Jurisprudence at Oxford; since 1998 he has been the Quain Professor ofJurisprudence at University College London. Dworkin is the author of eight books, includingTaking Rights Seriously (1977), Laws Empire (1986), which received the American BarAssociations prestigious Coif Award, and Freedoms Law (1996). His most recent book isSovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality, published earlier this year by Harvard

University Press. Dworkin is also a frequent contributor to both scholarly and non-specialistpublications, notably The New York Review of Books . This essay is copyright 2000 by RonaldDworkin. It was originally presented as a public lecture in New York City on October 11, 2000,honoring Prof. Dworkins appointment as the New York Council for the Humanities 2000 Scholarof the Year. The lecture was sponsored by the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.

I. The Dilemma

My title suggests a dilemma. In the ordinary course of their work, judges make decisionsabout many matters that are also, at least on the surface, the subjects of a greatphilosophical literature. Judges make decisions about when mentally ill people accused ofcrime are nevertheless responsible for their acts and about whether a particular defendantsaction actually caused the plaintiffs injury, for example and the concepts ofresponsibility and causation are perennial subjects of philosophical study. Philosophicalissues are particularly prominent in constitutional law; they were inescapable in the mostdramatic of the Supreme Courts recent decisions about abortion, affirmative action,assisted suicide, and free speech.

* Is a fetus a person with rights and interests of its own? If so, do these rights includea right not to be killed, even when a continuing pregnancy would be seriouslydisadvantageous or harmful to its mother? If not, is there any other basis for a statesprohibiting or regulating abortion?

* Is it a violation of the equal concern a nation owes its citizens when it permits statebodies to count race in considering applications to colleges and professional schools? Isthat different from treating applicants differently depending on their scores on aptitudetests, or on their basketball ability?* Should we always allocate scarce resources on the basis of merit? What doesmerit mean?* Does it violate fundamental principles of decent government to deny dying citizensthe right to die when and how they wish? Do citizens have a right of moral independence


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in personal decisions that means that how they die is up to them? Is such a right part of thevery concept of ordered liberty, which the Supreme Court has said it is the task of the dueprocess clause to protect?* What is the connection between abortion and assisted suicide? If the Constitutiongrants pregnant women a right to an abortion, as the Supreme Court has decided it does,does it follow that it also grants dying patients a right to decide how and when to die?What is the role, in the assisted suicide controversy, of the often-cited distinction betweenkilling and letting die? Is there a morally pertinent distinction between the negative actof withholding life support and the positive act of prescribing lethal pills?* Why is government required to give special protection to a right of free speech?Does that right include the right of bigots to denounce minorities in insulting and offensiveterms? Does it include the right of candidates for political office to spend as much moneyas they can raise on their campaigns, or the right of donors to contribute as much money asthey wish to those campaigns?

These are not essentially empirical questions that might be disposed of by science oreconomics or sociology or history. Of course facts and predictions matter sometimes

crucially in confronting them. But the issues at the core of each are issues of value notfact, and they call not just for commitment to settled and clear principles but for reflectionon the point and accurate formulation of these principles, and on the interconnections andpossible conflicts among them. That is the vocation of moral and political philosophers.Judges and philosophers do not merely share overlapping subject-matters, like astronomersand astrologers. On the contrary, the aims and methods of judges include those ofphilosophers: both professions aim more accurately to formulate and better to understandthe key concepts in which our reigning political morality and our basic law are expressed.

It would therefore seem natural to expect judges to have some familiarity with thephilosophical literature, just as they are now expected to have some familiarity with

economics and, in the case of constitutional judges, constitutional history. They could not,of course, simply look up the answers to the philosophical issues they face in some officialor state-of-the-art philosophical manual, because philosophers disagree radically about thebest theories of responsibility, causation, personhood, equality and free speech, and aboutwhether letting die is the same as killing. But that hardly justifies judges ignoring whatthe philosophers have written: it would be insulting to both judges and philosophers tosuppose that the former could not benefit from studying the different and conflictingtheories of the latter, just as they benefit from reading lawyers briefs on opposing sides ofsome issue. What judges do is of immense importance, not only for the parties to the casesthey adjudicate but also, particularly in constitutional law, for the governance of the nation.If the issues they face have been debated among educated men and women who havedevoted their lives to these debates, how can the judges responsibly ignore what these menand women have written?

That is the first leg of the dilemma. Now consider the second. It seems whollyunrealistic to ask most judges to try to gain even an undergraduate philosophy majorsunderstanding of the demanding, ancient, and enormous literature of philosophy. Judgesare short of time as it is, and it would strike most of them as preposterous that they shouldadd to their other responsibilities a crash course in which they learn the main claims andarguments of even the leading contemporary moral and political philosophers like Thomas


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Nagel, John Rawls, Thomas Scanlon or Bernard Williams (let alone the great classicalphilosophers). Even if, by some combination of extraordinary dedication and application,most judges did become self-conscious philosophers, we would not want them to writetheir opinions in the vocabulary of professional philosophy, because such opinions shouldbe moreaccessible to the general public, not less. Do we really want our judges to divideinto philosophical parties, with Kant capturing, say, the Second Circuit and Hobbes theSeventh? Wouldnt it be a nightmare if judicial decisions depended on which philosophercaught the imagination of which judge?

Judges must be philosophers, but judges cant and perhaps shouldnt be philosophers.That is the dilemma I mean to pose. There are two ways to try to escape it. We mightargue that it is not true, after all, that judges must be philosophers. Or we might argue thatit is not true, after all, that they cant be philosophers: we might come to think that they canbe philosophical enough to relieve the dilemmas sting. The first of these escape routes isby far the more popular, and I will devote the next several sections to it. If I am right,however, then all of the strategies for this direction of escape fail, and so we will have toconsider, later, how far the second escape route is more successful.

II. Concepts, Legal History, and Original Intention

I said, just now, that judges worry about the same concepts that philosophers havestudied. But that claim might be challenged: if, in spite of first appearances, it is not true,then judges can safely ignore philosophy. The most dramatic form of the challenge arguesthat the words lawyers and judges use responsibility, causation, equality, libertyand the rest actually refer to strictly legal concepts that are different from the ordinary-language concepts that philosophers use these words to name. It is true that lawyers dosometimes use words spelled the same way as words in the ordinary language but with very

different meanings: when a lawyer says that a contract is not binding unless considerationhas been given, the word has little to do with the ordinary idea of consideration. But it isstrikingly implausible that this is true of the concepts that I named. The statesmen andjudges who stipulated that no one is to be punished who was not responsible for his actions,or that people are to be treated as equals before the law, meant to carry familiar moraljudgments and principles into legal practice, and they therefore used the concepts in whichthose judgments and principles are expressed. If we were to suppose, instead, that the law-makers were deploying entirely different and specially legal concepts, which they usedwords spelled responsible and equal to designate, then we would make what they didunmotivated or perverse.

There is, however, a more sophisticated and plausible form of the same challenge. Legalpractice and precedent often shape the meaning of a word taken from ordinary language sothat a contemporary judges freedom to interpret that word in accordance with aphilosophical theory or understanding might be very limited. The law of crime, property,contract, and tort must be structured mainly by technical rules whose operation can bepredicted with reasonable confidence by citizens, homeowners, testators, businessmen, andinsurance companies, and precedent therefore has a high value in these areas. If precedentfixes what counts as responsibility in the criminal law, or causation in the law of tort, and ajudge is not free to overrule that precedent, why should he inquire whether some


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to discover what those who made these ideas part of the law thought was the best theory,which is a matter of history not philosophy.

This original intention model of constitutional adjudication is now less popular amongconstitutional law scholars than it once was, and objections to it are well known. But evenif we accepted the model, it would offer no escape from the dilemma I described, because itwould make constitutional law more entwined with philosophical issues, not less. Forjudges who accept the model must face a battery of questions that are among the mostperplexing issues in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and political philosophy.We can mean many different things when we refer, as an interpretive device, to the theoryor intention or understanding of a very large group of people like those who together madethe Constitution and its amendments. But one thing we cannot intelligibly mean is thetheory or intention or understanding that they all shared: most of them presumably had notheory at all about the point of protecting free speech, for example, and those who didpresumably disagreed with one another.

Which, among the remaining interpretive possibilities, should we adopt? Even if we were

to choose, arbitrarily, one particular individual whose opinions we would take to bedecisive say the draftsman who wrote most of the clause in question, if any onedraftsman did our philosophical difficulties would only have begun. Suppose wediscover (and this seems quite likely, given the language that he used)that the maindraftsman of the Fourteenth Amendments equal protection clause himself intended thatpeople should be equal before the law according to the bestunderstanding of what thatmeans, and not according to his ownunderstanding at the time (which he might well haverealized could be incomplete). What would deference to the original intention require inthese circumstances? Would a contemporary judge committed to original intention then berequired to interpret the clause in accordance with what the draftsman actually intended toenact? If so, would that not send him back to the political philosophy that the original

intention doctrine promised to avoid? Should we not ask, in order to decide questions likethat, why judges should look to original intention? The answer might be said to lie indemocracy or in the rule of law. But we must choose among rival conceptions of thoseremarkably abstract ideals to decide what answers they offer to the questions that perplexus and this exercise would involve us in even more complex philosophical issues. What,after all, is democracy? Or the rule of law?

III. Instinct and Intuition

So the first escape route that judges and philosophers do not after all share a subjectmatter and an aim is an illusion, at least for the most important legal concepts, includingthe constitutional ones. We must therefore consider other, more ambitious, ways ofdenying the first leg of the dilemma I constructed.

We might recommend, first, that judges decide philosophical issues not by consultingphilosophers, but by raw instinct or gut reaction. In the assisted suicide cases, theSupreme Court was required to decide whether there is a morally relevant differencebetween a doctor withdrawing life support from a patient anxious to die which theCourt, in effect, had held that states may not forbid and doctors aiding suicide in a more


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active way, by prescribing pills that would let a patient kill himself, for example, or givinga patient who begs for death, but cannot take pills, a lethal injection. If a state may notforbid the first, does it have the right to forbid the second? That is one aspect of an oldphilosophical issue when and how far is letting someone die morally different fromkilling him? and the justices might have consulted the philosophical literature and triedto explain which side they were taking and why. Of course many citizens who took theother side would not have been convinced by the Courts argument, but they would haveknown that the justices had puzzled over the case for their own view, and tried to explainwhy they found it unpersuasive. According to the suggestion we are now considering,however, they should not do this. They should ignore the philosophers and simply declaretheir immediate and unstudied reaction to the issue.

Justice Byron White once said that though he could not define obscenity, he knew it whenhe saw it. Our new suggestion generalizes that strategy: judges should not try to analyzedifficult philosophical concepts or ideas, but should only report their instinctive reaction. Ifa judge intuitively feels that it is permissible for a doctor to withdraw life support when apatient demands it, but not to prescribe fatal pills, he should not worry about whether he

could defend that distinction in reasoned argument, but just declare that that is how hefeels, or most people feel, or something of the sort.

The suggestion has had some distinguished judicial proponents. Oliver Wendell Holmessaid that he judged whether some procedure the police used to obtain evidence violated thedue process clause by asking whether it made him puke. (That may have been the source ofthe adage of the so-called legal realist s that justice depends on what the judge had forbreakfast.) But it is one of the most valued features of adjudication indeed, I believethat the legitimacy of adjudication as an instrument of government depends on this thatjudges decide on reasons and explain their reasons. What (other than a desire to sparethemselves a difficult task) could justify judges in deciding crucially important cases in that

apparently cavalier way?

I can think of two arguments, but they both, once again, raise rather than lower thephilosophical stakes, because they both depend on highly controversial philosophicalpositions. If these are the reasons we settle on to explain why judges neednt bephilosophers, then the judges would have to become philosophers in order to understandthem. The first of these two arguments applies particularly to the concepts I have taken asmy most frequent examples: the moral concepts that figure in constitutional adjudication.The argument rests on a philosophical thesis called intuitionism, which holds that people or, in any case, the right kind of people have native faculties that enable them tointuit the truth about moral issues directly, without benefit of any reflection or argument.(According to some versions of intuitionism, reflection and argument actually dull thesense of justice.) Intuitionism is not currently in favor among moral philosophers, at leastin the Anglo-American branch of that field, but of course it does not follow that it iswrong. It may well be revived in a decade or a day and become the philosophical flavor ofthe month. It does, however, face serious difficulties that seem to disqualify it from servingas the justification for judges who would decline to give reasons. It depends on asupposedly built-in human capacity for non-reflective and non-argumentative intuition, onthe model of a sense perception but it is wholly mysterious how moral facts couldconceivably interact with a human nervous system. And the supposition that human beings


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have this capacity as a species seems contradicted by the great diversity and conflict inmoral opinion among them. Intuitionists insist that some peoples vision is clouded. Butwe seem to have no way of deciding whose vision is clouded whose capacities forintuition are defective except by asking whether they agree with us about morals, andthis, too, seems unsatisfactory.

The second argument in favor of instructing judges to decide on instinct or immediate,unreflective, judgment also applies with particular force to the moral concepts. This ismoral skepticism, which declares that there is no right answer to the so-calledphilosophical questions of what personhood or liberty or equality or democracy consist in,and that judges therefore shouldnt waste time searching for one. Since any answer is just achoice, with nothing deeper to recommend it, judges do better to settle on the answers thatstrikes them as right at once: they save time and energy for other uses. (Holmes, the authorof the puke test, was a passionate, committed moral skeptic, and much of his life andwritings are explicable only when we take the full measure of that fact.) Once again, as Isaid, this argument for ignoring philosophy depends on a controversial philosophicalposition. (In my view it is an indefensible and, indeed, in its most popular forms right now,

an incoherent position.*) Most judges are not like Holmes: they are not moral skeptics, andthe argument that they may ignore philosophy because skepticism is right will not seem anybetter a reason to them than it does to me and, I hope, you.

IV. Pragmatism

We have now canvassed and rejected two ways of escape from the dilemma I describedby denying the first leg of that dilemma that judges must be philosophers. We cannotescape by declaring that history has so shaped the legal concepts of causation orpersonhood or equality that they are now different concepts from those that philosophers

study. History has indeed shaped the legal concepts, but they remain open to development,and the judges developing the concepts must ask themselves the same questions as thephilosophers do. Nor should we try to escape by declaring that judges do best, inanswering those difficult questions, when they answer according to their immediateinstincts with no study or reflection.

There is a third possible strategy, however, which has recently secured much morepopularity among academic lawyers. Many of them propose that judges by-pass thetraditional issues that have occupied philosophers like the issue of what responsibility orcausation or equality or free speech really means, or whether letting die is really differentfrom killing by embracing a different and apparently radical philosophical tradition,called pragmatism, which encourages them to ask, instead, whether it makes an actualdifference to the communitys future which account of these concepts judges use, and, if itdoes, which account would produce the best future. Instead of allowing the vexingquestion of whether states may prohibit abortion to turn on highly abstract philosophicalpuzzles does a fetus have rights and interests of its own, for example we should makeit turn on a much more practical and tractable question that we do not need philosophy toanswer: Would prohibiting abortion produce the best consequences for the community inthe long run?


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Philosophical stances have their fashions, of course, and pragmatism and its even morefashionable sister, sociobiology, were in vogue across the academic landscape for a time,and still are in law schools where hot fashions go to cool down and die. But in the presentcontext, at least, pragmatism is vacuous, and of no help in escaping from our dilemma. Thepragmatist tells us that judges may set the abstract puzzles about abortion aside and askonly whether the consequences will be better if women are prohibited from obtainingabortions. But we cannot decide whether the consequences of a constitutional decision arebetter than the consequences of a different decision without confronting, once again, thevery philosophical issues that the pragmatist hopes to avoid.

If abortion is constitutionally protected, let us assume, there will be more abortions andfewer women whose lives have been blighted with an unwanted child. (Of course, therewill be many other consequences as well, some harder to predict, but these will be amongthe most prominent.) Do these prominent consequences, considered by themselves, meanthat things have gone better? Or worse? How can we decide without deciding, in effect,whether abortion is murder? For if it is, then things have not gone better, no matter howmuch better they seem in other ways. Suppose, on the other hand, that the courts had

decided that an abortion is notconstitutionally protected, and many states had continued todeclare it criminal. The issue would slowly have faded from public controversy, andeveryone would have accepted an accommodation in which, for example, women ofsufficient means could have traveled to states in which abortion was permitted and thosewho could not would have borne their children without complaint. In one way thingswould then have gone much better: there would have been less public strife. But we couldnot decide whether things had gone better overall without deciding whether the womenwho had been denied abortions, or caused to incur great expense and trouble in order toobtain one, had been treated unjustly. Of course we may think that unjust treatment forsome depends upon whether the community, on the whole, is happier (or at least lessdivided) as a result of denying abortions. But whether we are entitled to think that depends

on yet another moral issue of philosophical scope, which is whether utilitarianism is true.

V. The New Formalism

The surprising popularity of that empty theory (i.e., pragmatism) is more evidence thatthe dilemma I described at the outset is deep and troubling. Since it really sunk in amongAmerican lawyers, a few decades ago, that formalistic legal positivism is a hopelesslyinadequate account of what American judges do, they have feared the alternative: thatjudicial decision-making requires judgments about moral issues so deep and divisive thatthey are the object of deep and continuing philosophical study and division. It seemshorrifying that un-elected judges should have the power to impose one set of answers tosuch enduring questions on litigants and the nation. But the idea that judges can somehowdecide hard cases, including hard constitutional cases, by switching their focus fromcontroversial principles to demonstrable facts and consequences is just another example ofthe sad disposition of some legal scholars to hide their heads in the sands. It is time thelegal profession openly confronted the fact that American citizens are deeply divided aboutmoral issues, that judicial decision inevitably involves such issues, and that judges have theresponsibility to admit this and explain why they have taken whatever position that theyhave.


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There is another possibility, however. If the law as it stands as history and practicehave made it turns on concepts of philosophical dimension, if all the various devices wemight construct for allowing judges to decide cases without embedding themselves in theunending controversies over those concepts must fail, if we find it unrealistic andunacceptable that they should become philosophers themselves, then we have only onerecourse: we can change the law as it stands into a law better suited to more disciplined andless ambitious judges. So we must turn, finally, to the most radical of the escapes that havebeen offered, which has been called the new formalism. Jeremy Bentham, who hated theinstitution that he called Judge & Co., argued that the power of judges to act likephilosophers should be curbed by codifying all law so that judicial decisions really did turnout to be mechanical. Surprising though this seems to a lawyer of my generation,Benthams spirit is alive again, more than two centuries later. There is growing enthusiasmfor a legal system that would allow adjudication to be more mechanical.

We see this new enthusiasm in the work of a variety of scholars and judges who differfrom one another in many ways: Thomas Grey, Antonin Scalia, Frederick Schauer, and

Cass Sunstein, for example. The shared aim of the new formalists what these verydifferent figures have in common is a desire to change law and legal practice in a waythat decreases the scope of judgment left open to judges in deciding what the law is. Theyrecommend a variety of strategies, from codification (in the style of Bentham), to urgingjudges who make new doctrine to formulate crisp rules that can be applied mechanicallythereafter (rather than just offering general principles), to Scalias design for statutoryinterpretation (which asks judges not to speculate about the intentions or purposes thatlegislators may have had for making the laws that they did, but to enforce the most literalmeaning of what they actually said).

The new formalism is also responsible for a new enthusiasm for the original intention

doctrine of constitutional adjudication that I discussed earlier. The first impetus for thatdoctrine was semantic and interpretive: its defenders insisted that the Constitution, as itstands, consists in the framers understandings of the moral concepts the document uses,not the best understanding of these concepts. The new formalists version is not semanticbut strategic, however: they urge judges to look for an original intention not for the positivereason that it represents what the Constitution really means, but for the negative reason thatjudges who decide cases that way neednt deploy their own moral or philosophicalconvictions. As I have already argued, this strategy must fail in its goal: it is not a way ofallowing judges to escape philosophy, but of plunging them more deeply into philosophicalcontroversy.

But we should consider the merits of the new formalism as a general strategy. It cannotbe a reason for accepting a return to mechanical jurisprudence just that it will relieve judgesfrom making difficult or controversial decisions. That would be allowing the tail to wagthe dog: we should first decide what kind of a legal structure we wish to be governed by,and then determine what role judges must play in such a structure. We may have somereasons for wanting to be governed by a more mechanical set of rules, and these may begood reasons in some areas particularly private law areas of the law. We may believethat we do better, in these areas, to ask judges to confine their interventions in peoplesaffairs to what is clearly required under crisp rules that some elective legislative body has


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created, leaving it to the legislature to decide when some clarification or change in theserules is desirable. I am not myself persuaded of this, however; I believe that we would losemore than we would gain by enlarging the domains of the law in which judicial decisionsare mechanical.

When we turn to the area of my main examples constitutional law my objections tothe new formalism run deeper: it would subvert the underlying assumption of our wholeconstitutional enterprise, which is that citizens have rights that should be protected from theshifting and self-interested verdicts of majoritarian institutions. The old original intentionschool assumed, as I said, as a matter of semantics and history, that those rights are limitedto what long-dead statesmen understood them to be. The old original intention schoolbelieved it was guarding the Constitutional arrangement as it really is. The new formalistsin constitutional law make no such assumption; their argument is revolutionary notinterpretive. They accept that the change they propose will sharply decrease the power ofjudges to enforce what they take to be peoples constitutional rights. That is their goal, andthey fix on the original intention doctrine as only a convenient way, made available byrhetoric to which the public has become accustomed, to accomplish that change. The

rhetoric makes the change seem less radical than it really is.

What justifications could we find for that dramatic transformation of our practice? Itmight be said, first, that legislatures will do a better job of identifying and enforcing actualconstitutional rights than judges do: that legislatures will be better at philosophy thanjudges are. But that is implausible. Or it might be said that our Constitution, as it stands, isundemocratic, and that the switch in power will improve our democracy. But that claimrests on a peculiar definition of democracy that it means only majority will and thatclaim is itself foreign to our history. These do not seem adequate reasons for pretendingthat our Constitution is just an historical accident, just the codification of the concretepolitical opinions and judgments fashionable among elite eighteenth- and nineteenth-

century statesmen and politicians. That would be a betrayal of our political heritage,including a betrayal of what those statesmen and politicians thought they were creating.For better or for worse surely for the better we believe that our law in general, andour Constitution in particular, rest on principle not historical accident, and it would be agreat wrench in our collective self-understanding to give that idea up now.

We cannot cite even Benthams authority, for all his talk of codification and for all hisdistrust of judges, to justify such a change. For he had a grand philosophy utilitarianism that, at least in his view, would be served by insisting that legislators design rules thatcontain no abstract moral terms but just stipulate the prohibitions, remedies andpunishments that a grand utilitarian calculation would attach to particular acts.Utilitarianism is just another controversial philosophy, and an unattractive one. Unless wewish to embrace it, or some other reductionist form of consequentialism, we should not tryto eliminate judgment from our judges reflections about what legal justice requires inindividual cases.

VI. Philosophical Attitude and Philosophical Depth

We are back at the beginning. Our law asks judges to make decisions about issues that


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have been studied with great care by philosophers of different kinds and schools, and wecannot think of any acceptable change in our expectations of judges, or in the structure orcharacter of our law, that would alter that fact. So we must now examine the second leg ofthe dilemma I constructed. Canjudges be philosophers? We must take care, in answeringthis question, to avoid any caricature of what that would mean. It would be silly to askjudges to takes leaves of absence to get Ph.D.s in philosophy, and then, upon their returnto the bench, to write judicial opinions that could be published in philosophical journals.Nothing like that happened when judges became more aware of the importance of formaleconomics in legal analysis, however. Judges did not become state-of-the-art proficient ineconometrics or the mathematical analysis of economic behavior, and yet their opinionsbecame both more sensitive to and sophisticated about economic considerations.

We need ask no more for philosophy. But what would count as an increased sensitivityto that subject? Judges should come to understand, for a start, that the concepts they wield the concepts of responsibility, meaning, intention, equality, liberty, and democracy, forexample are difficultconcepts, that it is very far from plain or settled what the bestaccount of these concepts is, and that it would be a mistake to think that our law or history

or culture has settled on one account that is therefore available, without further inspection,for judges use. They should come to understand that all the short-cut expedients we justconsidered intuitionism and pragmatism as well as formalism are illusions, that theymust choose among competing principles all of which offer to explicate constitutionalconcepts, and that they must be ready to state and defend their choices. These might seemonly limited advances, but they would be very important.

What might we reasonably expect beyond that? We should hope for a change in thebackground culture that fixes what judges and lawyers more generally take to berelevant to a legal argument. That background culture has accepted economics and,particularly in the case of constitutional law, constitutional and political history. Lawyers

understand that they are not only permitted but obliged to study these disciplines in thehope of finding arguments helpful to their position, and to present any they find to thecourt. The culture should embrace pertinent philosophical material as relevant in the sameway. Lawyers debating the proper understanding of the equal protection clause, forexample, should be encouraged to construct and distinguish conceptions of equality and toargue why one rather than another of these is the appropriate conception through which tounderstand the force of the clause. I do not mean that either they or the judges they addressshould cite or copy the arguments of any particular philosopher. Lawyers trained in theright way can make their own philosophical arguments, which might be different fromthose any academic philosopher has offered, and judges can assess these arguments withoutpinning them to any philosopher. Nevertheless it would not be unreasonable to expectjudges and lawyers alike to have some familiarity with at least the leading contemporaryschools of legal, moral, and political philosophy, because that seems indispensable to aproper appreciation of any philosophical argument they are asked to ponder. We wouldthink a constitutional judge remiss who did not have a working understanding of theleading historians of the Constitutional Convention and the Civil War Amendments. Whyshould we not also insist that constitutional justices be aware of the writings of, say, JohnRawls or H.L.A. Hart? Of course I do not mean that judges should regard themselves asdisciples. I mean exactly the contrary: that they should have enough understanding of thework of the leading philosophers in the pertinent branches of philosophy to read those


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philosophers critically.

I should say again, out of caution, that I am not supposing that any increased judicialsophistication in philosophy would eliminate controversy among judges. How could it,since philosophers disagree so dramatically among themselves? But it may reducecontroversy. It is a familiar story that some justices who were appointed to the courtbecause they were safe conservatives, like Warren or Brennan or Souter, turned out to bemore liberal than expected, and some who were appointed because they were safe liberals,like Frankfurter, turned out to be more conservative. Philosophical reflection is moretesting of flaccid assumption, and therefore more likely to work such a change, than anyother kind. I do not urge greater philosophical sophistication because it will eliminate orreduce controversy, however, but because it will make controversy (if you will forgive thepiety) more respectable, or at least more illuminating. How can it not help if judges whodisagree, as they are bound to disagree, about what democracy really is are aware of thephilosophical dimensions of their disagreement, and have some sense of the ideas of peoplewho have devoted great time and industry to sharpening the controversy? At a minimum, itshould help them and us to understand what they are really disagreeing about.

VII. Philosophy and Legal Education

I am speaking as if nothing of what I hope to see yet exists, and that is wrong. There isalready a great deal more sophistication about philosophy among lawyers and judges, andin legal education, than there used to be. Justices Breyer and Stevens, to name but twoprominent judges, have both cited philosophers in their opinions in recent years. There areprofessional academic philosophers on the faculties of leading American law schools,including NYU, Yale, and Chicago. All the leading schools offer courses in legalphilosophy as part of their curriculum, and these courses are generally much more

integrated with general philosophy than they used to be.

If the profession is to grow steadily more aware of the importance of philosophy inadjudication, however, the place of that subject in legal education must increase. Thereshould be more introductory and advanced courses in substantive moral and politicalphilosophy in more law schools. Legal education is already crowded, however: there isalready too much for three years, which means that many students will not feel able to takeup the opportunity that more philosophy electives would offer. But law schools shouldaim to bring philosophy into the more basic legal courses as well. A course in tort law, forexample, should make students as aware of rival philosophical theories about moralresponsibility for damage as they are about rival economic theories about the consequencesof tort law for the overall costs of accidents. Constitutional law classes should studydifferent conceptions of democracy, and of the different roles that ideas about liberty,equality, and social justice might be understood to play in constitutional interpretation.

I have no doubt offended many lawyers in this defense of philosophy, and I now riskoffending philosophers as well. For I think not only that substantive moral and politicalphilosophy are appropriate subjects to inject, in different ways, into a law schoolcurriculum, but that law schools may be a betterplace for such studies than any otherquarter of the universities, including philosophy departments. For in a legal context we


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understand particularly well the actual implications of different moral and politicalprinciples: we put away the staples of many philosophy courses fantastic stories aboutrunaway trolleys that might kill two or twenty people tied to different sections of a track and we consider moral issues in clotted and rea

¿deben los jueces ser filósofos

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