Harvard Law Review · 1995 · 452 citations · 0 references
LawJurisprudenceComparative JurisprudenceLegal RealismPhilosophy Of LawLegal PluralismLegal SystemsSocial Stability
Legal systems often achieve agreement amid pluralism by focusing on specific outcomes and minimal explanations, avoiding fundamental principles unless necessary. The study emphasizes that agreement should center on particular details rather than abstract principles. This approach promotes social stability and mutual respect in law and the broader liberal democratic context.
Well-functioning legal systems often tend to adopt a special strategy for producing agreement amidst pluralism. Participants in legal controversies try to produce incompletely theorized agreements on particular outcomes. They agree on the result and on relatively narrow or low-level explanations for it. They need not agree on fundamental principle. They do not offer larger or more abstract explanations than are necessary to decide the case. When they disagree on an abstraction, they move to a level of greater particularity. The distinctive feature of this account is that it emphasizes agreement on (relative) particulars rather than on (relative) abstractions. This is an important source of social stability and an important way for diverse people to demonstrate mutual respect, in law especially but also in liberal democracy as a whole.