The Supreme Court, 1982 Term -- Foreword: Nomos and Narrative

Abstract

The normative universe is held together by the force of interpretivecommitments - some small and private, others immense and public.These commitments - of officials and of others - do determine whatlaw means and what law shall be. If there existed two legal orderswith identical legal precepts and identical, predictable patterns ofpublic force, they would nonetheless differ essentially in meaning if,in one of the orders, the precepts were universally venerated while inthe other they were regarded by many as fundamentally unjust.