Law as a Means to an End: Threat to the Rule of Law

by Brian Z. Tamanaha

• ISBN13: 9780521689670
• ISBN10: 0521689678
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-02
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The contemporary U.S. legal culture is marked by ubiquitous battles among various groups attempting to seize control of the law and wield it against others in pursuit of their particular agenda. This battle takes place in administrative, legislative, and judicial arenas at both the state and federal levels. This book identifies the underlying source of these battles in the spread of the instrumental view of law -- the idea that law is purely a means to an end -- in a context of sharp disagreement over the social good. It traces the rise of the instrumental view of law in the course of the past two centuries, then demonstrates the pervasiveness of this view of law and its implications within the contemporary legal culture, and ends by showing the various ways in which seeing law in purely instrumental terms threatens to corrode the rule of law.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Spread of Legal Instrumentalism

Non-instrumental views of law

Changing society and common law in the nineteenth century

Nineteenth century legislation and legal profession

Instrumentalism of the legal realists

Twentieth century Supreme Court instrumentalism

Contemporary Legal Instrumentalism

Instrumentalism in legal academia in the 1970s

Instrumentalism in theories of law

Instrumentalism in the legal profession

Instrumentalism of cause litigation

Instrumentalism and the judiciary

Instrumentalism in legislation and administration

Corroding the Rule of Law

Collapse of higher law, deterioration of common good

The threat to legality

Epilogue

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.