Four Qualms About Legal Pragmatism
27 Pages Posted: 10 Oct 2013 Last revised: 26 Jan 2024
Date Written: October 8, 2013
Abstract
I try to explain why I find “legal pragmatism” mostly useless in thinking about law. My qualms about “legal pragmatism” fall under four headings: (1) Empty eclecticism, (2) reductive instrumentalism, (3) “the primacy of practice” and (4) the metaphysically preservative recoil. Originally a talk at the 2012 Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference, "Law and Pragmatism" Panel.
Keywords: legal pragmatism, Posner, instrumentalism, primacy of practice, Wittgenstein, interpretation, pragmatic conceptualism
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Stone, Martin J., Four Qualms About Legal Pragmatism (October 8, 2013). Cardozo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 415
, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2337600 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2337600
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