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- RogerD345
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Elle Woods
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Passage Discussion
Hi. Can one of Manhattan Prep Instructor possibly provide a good Passage discussion for this RC? The lines in this RC are really NOT sticking in my brain and makes my breakdown of this passage so bad
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- ohthatpatrick
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Atticus Finch
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Re: Passage Discussion
Sorry for the late reply. This one slipped through the cracks.
This IS a tough read. We can probably tell from a bird's eye view that ultimately there are 3 perspectives (as well as our author's who aligns with one of the three).
Natural Law
Legal Positivism
Dworkin's (which is falling somewhere in between them)
The 1st paragraph already warns us that Dworkin will reject both Natural Law ("clearly unacceptable") and Legal Positivism ("an erroneous theory known as ... LP"), but it only defines Natural Law.
The 2nd paragraph defines and describes Legal Positivism.
The 3rd paragraph introduces Dworkin's objections and his point of view.
The 4th paragraph shows us that the Author is on Dworkin's side, and they collectively tell the Positivist's where they went wrong.
So from a bird's eye view, the passage map is pretty easy.
P1 - Dworkin doesn't like NL or LP, and we learn about NL and what D doesn't like about it.
P2 - We learn about LP.
P3 - We learn what D doesn't like about LP.
P4 - We learn that the author agrees with D and they explain where LP went wrong.
The gravy would be if we have a functional understanding of NL, LP, D's complaints about each, and the author's shared complaint against LP.
NL - judges should interpret law by consulting their own moral thoughts (instead of asking themselves, 'DID this person break the applicable law', ask themselves 'IS the law fair, or SHOULD this person be punished?')
D's complaint - it ain't up to judges to decide on what laws SHOULD be. That's what legislators do. Judges should just judge whether there's conclusive evidence that a law was broken.
LP - A law isn't determined by the judge's sense of morality; it's determined by the social convention of what people generally understand the law to mean. You determine the meaning of a word by figuring out how people use it, and similarly you figure out the meaning of a law by figuring out what consensus understanding people have of the law. If people can't agree, then there's no legal fact.
D's complaint - That doesn't match reality at all. Judges and lawyers seem to think there's a legal fact, even when there isn't a consensus. And judges something do need to involve their own moral compass in interpreting the law, even though they are most bound by the internal logic of the society's laws.
Author's and D's shared rebuttal - A body of laws end up having their own internal logic, an emergent property that is separate from one judge's moral opinion or the general consensus of people. This internal logic is really what dictates interpretation, and it may even lead us to go against the interpretation others have made (or the one the author's of the law intended).
This IS a tough read. We can probably tell from a bird's eye view that ultimately there are 3 perspectives (as well as our author's who aligns with one of the three).
Natural Law
Legal Positivism
Dworkin's (which is falling somewhere in between them)
The 1st paragraph already warns us that Dworkin will reject both Natural Law ("clearly unacceptable") and Legal Positivism ("an erroneous theory known as ... LP"), but it only defines Natural Law.
The 2nd paragraph defines and describes Legal Positivism.
The 3rd paragraph introduces Dworkin's objections and his point of view.
The 4th paragraph shows us that the Author is on Dworkin's side, and they collectively tell the Positivist's where they went wrong.
So from a bird's eye view, the passage map is pretty easy.
P1 - Dworkin doesn't like NL or LP, and we learn about NL and what D doesn't like about it.
P2 - We learn about LP.
P3 - We learn what D doesn't like about LP.
P4 - We learn that the author agrees with D and they explain where LP went wrong.
The gravy would be if we have a functional understanding of NL, LP, D's complaints about each, and the author's shared complaint against LP.
NL - judges should interpret law by consulting their own moral thoughts (instead of asking themselves, 'DID this person break the applicable law', ask themselves 'IS the law fair, or SHOULD this person be punished?')
D's complaint - it ain't up to judges to decide on what laws SHOULD be. That's what legislators do. Judges should just judge whether there's conclusive evidence that a law was broken.
LP - A law isn't determined by the judge's sense of morality; it's determined by the social convention of what people generally understand the law to mean. You determine the meaning of a word by figuring out how people use it, and similarly you figure out the meaning of a law by figuring out what consensus understanding people have of the law. If people can't agree, then there's no legal fact.
D's complaint - That doesn't match reality at all. Judges and lawyers seem to think there's a legal fact, even when there isn't a consensus. And judges something do need to involve their own moral compass in interpreting the law, even though they are most bound by the internal logic of the society's laws.
Author's and D's shared rebuttal - A body of laws end up having their own internal logic, an emergent property that is separate from one judge's moral opinion or the general consensus of people. This internal logic is really what dictates interpretation, and it may even lead us to go against the interpretation others have made (or the one the author's of the law intended).
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