Chapter 21 Chapter 17 Law and the Scientific Method

We have seen that one of the basic functions of law is to bring to some reasonable degree order the multitude, variety, and variety of human actions and relations, and to promulgate rules applicable to certain restricted actions or Rules of conduct or standards of conduct for behavior.In order to successfully accomplish this task, the legal system must develop some specialized ideas and concepts that help to classify the various phenomena and events in social life.In this way, it provides the basis for uniformly and consistently adapting or addressing the same or substantially similar phenomena.Thus, legal concepts can be seen as working tools for identifying in an abbreviated way those typical situations that share the same or common elements.For example, the recurring fact that one person beats or inflicts bodily harm on another person out of anger, resentment, or revenge is subsumed by law under the term "assault" and is subject to a specific legal as a result of.When one person promises an action to another in exchange for a certain promise from the latter, the situation is known in legal terms as a "contract" and is governed by a broad regime of norms.If a person willfully takes away private property belonging to another person, the law applies the concept of "unlawful misappropriation of another's property" and punishes the offender with a prison sentence.

Since legal concepts are products of human language rather than natural objects, the relationship between these concepts and the objects they are intended to refer to has always attracted the attention of commentators.This relational question, for example, was at the center of a famous medieval debate about the concept of universals.According to medieval realism, there is a correspondence between the general concepts that people put forward and the kinds of objects in the external world with which they are related: every general concept or idea formed in the human mind is considered to be in the human There is an exact counterpart in objective reality outside of the human mind.On the other hand, nominalists argue that there are only individual things in nature, and that the general generalizations and classifications used to describe the world around us are no more than names (nominas), that is, linguistic symbols that apply to general situations , and these symbols cannot be considered faithful replicas of things that exist in reality.In other words, the world of man's mind must be separated from the objective world, and this is also obvious.In the words of a contemporary British nominalist, the opposing school of thought "tends to mistake the structure of discourse for the structure of the universe."

In this famous polemic, the dissidents presented sharp and opposing views, which clarified the epistemological issues in a rather substantive sense, but prevented the possibility of a consensus among them.Needless to say, the term "mountain," as the nominalists claim, is an abstraction, that is, a symbol derived from the human mind for a mass of rocks and earth apparently higher than the surface of the earth.In fact, every mountain looks different from all the others, and with good reason we have grown accustomed to identifying each mountain by a different name.But on the other hand, we cannot ignore that there are a large number of things in nature that share common characteristics and show striking similarities.For example, let's consider the term "human being".It is an abstraction we use to refer to the whole of all human beings.Of course, no natural object fits this concept.However, the term is not entirely linguistic, spiritual, or symbolic, for it refers to the undeniable fact that there are living beings on this earth in great numbers with many Common features can thus be considered to be identical and distinguishable from other organisms.

The value of medieval realism lies in its recognition that, in a very important sense, nature works through certain patterns and produces on a large scale almost identical or at least very similar objects.Philosophy cannot ignore this fundamental fact.But realism, on the other hand, oversimplifies the matter by assuming that the uniformities and differences made by nature correspond exactly to the general generalizations and distinctions created by the human mind for the purpose of describing nature. of.This point of view obviously ignores the fact that our language is not rich enough and subtle enough to reflect the infinity of kinds of natural phenomena, the combinations and changes of natural elements, and the gradual evolution of one thing into another. , and these evolutions have the character of objective reality as we understand it.In the words of Huntington Cairns, "There are far more things in the world than there are words to describe them".Although in most cases it is easy to distinguish oceans from lakes, or mountains from hills, there are still cases of uncertain ambiguities that make linguistic classification difficult; for example, calling the Black Sea It is sometimes questioned by geographers whether it is appropriate to call a sea rather than a lake.No matter how detailed and discriminating our vocabulary is, there will always be nuances and irregularities in reality that strict and definite linguistic classifications cannot help.While many concepts can be thought of as mental images of the relationships and coherence that exist in the natural world, this mental reproduction of reality is often imprecise, oversimplified, and incomplete.

The above general considerations have a significant bearing on the usefulness of concepts in legal science.The relationship is twofold: on the one hand, it has to do with the human need for legal concepts, but also with the constraints on the use of those concepts. Concepts are necessary and indispensable tools for solving legal problems.We cannot think clearly and rationally about legal issues without well-defined and specialized concepts.Without concepts, we would not be able to translate our thoughts about the law into words and communicate those thoughts to others in an intelligible way.If we try to deny concepts altogether, the whole legal edifice will be reduced to ashes.Since one of the primary purposes of law is to subject human action and conduct to certain normative standards, and since normative standards cannot be established without dividing the kinds of conduct to which a particular standard is intended to apply, the law The close relationship with the concept is immediately highlighted.Concepts, as noted above, are tools for identifying and differentiating phenomena peculiar to social reality; they enable us, to paraphrase Morris Cohen, to "order and combine diverse phenomena into together, because there is a real unity of these processes or relations, and this unity also constitutes the coherent element between these phenomena".Without the fulfillment of the first task of classification, the legal system cannot create any acceptable way of judging and prosecuting.Even approaching the ideals of legal certainty and judicial predictability will be impossible if we decide to abandon the use of conceptual judgments in judicial practice.It must be absurd for a legal system to be based solely on subjective responses and to deny the need for the tools of rational analysis.

However, the central meaning of a concept may be clear and definite, but it tends to become blurred when we move away from that center, and this is the nature of a concept.Wurzel uses a slightly different metaphor to describe the concept as "a photograph with blurred outlines that get progressively blurred towards the edges." To a large extent, they all vary with different concepts.In general, one might say that the more general and abstract a term is, the greater the area of ​​ambiguity surrounding its central meaning.However, as a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court has shown, even a term like "candy," which at first glance appears quite specific and unambiguous, can be ambiguous both in its central meaning and in its meaning. lead to difficulties in interpretation.

When people form and define legal concepts, they usually consider the most typical situations that can explain a certain concept, and do not seriously consider those ambiguous situations that are difficult to determine.For example, the legal concept of domicile is intended to apply when a person resides in a particular place either permanently or for a certain period of time.But it may also be the case that a person's dwelling is not so permanent, and yet there are good reasons for admitting that it is the person's residence.Clearly, the act of throwing something at another person's house falls under the legal term "violation."But on the other hand, one may also have reason to doubt whether artificial rainfall over the land against the will of the landowner is a violation or whether it should be attributed to another term in the Anglo-American tort liability, Such as the concept of "nuisance".Drawing the line between employee and independent contractor depends on a question of control, and since such control takes infinite forms, the line is often unclear and vague.In every field of law we find intractable cases of indeterminate ambiguity, that is, edge cases, where the bounds of a specialized concept have not yet been determined, or where, from a purely logical point of view, two or more The above confused and different concepts can be equally applied to the relevant facts.As Nussbaum has pointed out, although adjudicative uncertainty in the context of ambiguity can often be reduced through inherited legal attitudes and techniques, the problems raised by the marginal meanings of concepts remain Not uncommon and very tricky.

American jurist Wesley N. Hohfeld made important efforts in systematically and logically classifying and arranging some basic concepts of legal science.His aim was to analyze what he termed "the lowest commcn denominators of the law," including the concepts of legal relations, rights, duties, powers, privileges, responsibilities, and immunities, and to Explain the logical relationship between the above concepts.Some of Hohfeld's definitions of the meaning of the basic concepts were incorporated into the American Restatement of Property.However, Hohfeld's hope that his conceptual interpretation work would lead to a uniform set of terminology applicable to vastly different branches of law failed to materialize.United States courts have failed to adopt his proposed taxonomy and have continued to use the concepts of rights, obligations, privileges and immunities in inconsistent and inconsistent senses.Hohfeld's project of unifying concepts must therefore be described as one that belongs to the group of projects that have hitherto attempted terminological reforms but have not yet achieved them.

Of course, it is also theoretically possible to crystallize and clarify legal concepts through detailed definitions drawn up by the legislature, the judiciary, or a community of jurists.A legal movement known as the jurisprudence of conceptions, whose ideal was to create—mainly through the doctrinal efforts of jurists—a comprehensive system of legal concepts; into absolute notions of substantiality and as reliable and invariable pillars of deductive reasoning within strictly normative structures.This movement had a great influence on the European continent, especially in Germany, at the end of the last century and the beginning of this century.Representatives of the most absolute views in the conceptual law school even claimed that legal concepts are imported into the human brain in a priori way, and before the legal order is formed, they exist in a subconscious form.In other words, it is not that the legal order creates the concepts that serve its purpose, but rather that these concepts create the legal order and give rise to legal rules.Max Rumelin gives an example of how legal concepts are transformed into strictly normative constraints.In a well-known German textbook on the law of contract, the author of that book distinguishes between the sale of goods occurring simultaneously with the conclusion of the contract (a sale in the direct market) and the contract constituted by mutual promises to deliver and to pay A distinction is made between transactions.The author of the book dogmatically draws the conclusion from this distinction that in a sale on the direct market the seller of stolen goods is not liable for the damage he inflicts on the buyer because he cannot transfer title, since he has not yet concluded a contract for the delivery of the goods .

Conceptual jurisprudence—at least in its more dogmatic view—has not won universal acclaim in our time.What most judges and jurists today share is Mr Justice Cardozo's view that conceptual arbitrariness is "the source of a great deal of injustice."He points out that "when concepts are taken as real and are developed to their logical limits with total disregard for consequences," concepts are no longer servants but tyrants. "To a large extent, when concepts lead to oppression or injustice, we should treat them as provisional assumptions that can be reformulated and restricted."But he also concedes that "concepts are useful, and indeed essential, if handled properly. . . . They are values ​​that are deeply embedded in our law and legal philosophy." If we recognize We realize that concepts are valuable tools of judicial reasoning—without concepts, judicial activity cannot be accurately carried out; and if we at the same time avoid the error of constituting the absolute, the eternal, and unrelated to any social purpose— The purpose of these concepts is likely to serve these social purposes - irrelevant reality is regarded as an attribute of these concepts, then when we try to evaluate the utility of conceptual tools in justice, we can obtain an appropriate perspective.

The concepts determined by a legal system are mainly used to form legal rules and legal principles.As we all know, some legal norms are often developed around a single concept.For example, one constitutional provision states that "the passage of any act of abolishing the rights of citizens shall be prohibited." Other provisions, however, use several legal concepts and relate or link them in some way, such as a rule whose The general idea is that "when the movable property of the settlor is damaged by a third party while held by the trustee, the settlor of the movable property is not allowed to claim compensation on the grounds of joint fault of the trustee"; The principle of “respondeat superior” is not applicable to self-government bodies exercising governmental functions as distinct from those of proprietors.” In the above examples, such as disenfranchisement acts, settlors, trustees, magistrates, governmental functions and proprietorships Terms such as functions constitute legal concepts that differ from words in ordinary language because they are words of a specialized nature, and the detailed meaning and details of these words in the legal system are often beyond the understanding of ordinary people. The process of reasoning employed in law is based to a large extent on rules and principles containing concepts of a specialized nature.In many, perhaps most cases requiring legal analysis, the applicable rule can be easily identified without conflicting with other rules.After the court finds out the facts of the dispute between the parties, it can attribute these facts under a certain rule according to the process of logical deduction.Before doing so, however, it is necessary for the judge to explain certain ambiguous terms or unclear concepts that form part of the rule.Of course, it may also happen that the judge cannot easily discover a general rule applicable to the facts, but can infer it from a series of earlier decisions by inductive reasoning.There will also be many situations in which the facts found by the court do not fit properly within the semantic framework of a rule in effect, but the court decides the case by using an analogy in which the A relevant rule or similar precedent containing general policy principles applies to the trial of the case. I use the term "analytical reasoning" in this section to mean deductive methods (sometimes supplemented by an explanation of an ambiguous term), inductive methods, and analogies used in solving legal problems method.It is characteristic of analytical reasoning that courts can obtain premises expressed as a rule or principle, although the meaning and scope of application of the rule or principle are not in all cases certain, and the complex process of finding the facts must first to the application of this rule. The simplest form of legal inference is reasoning by the simple syllogism, which Aristotle called "a discourse in which, if certain things are stated first, then by these Things that are not these things necessarily lead to other things that are not these things." Here is an illustration of Aristotle's syllogism method: all living things are mortal human beings Therefore, people are mortal. In this syllogism, the first paragraph represents the major premise, the second represents the minor premise, and the third represents the conclusion.From the point of view of formal logic, this example of a syllogism is unassailable; formal logic is a science which "shows all the relationship to draw valid conclusions".Regardless of whether the major and minor premises in the above syllogism are correct in substance, it is obvious that formally speaking, the conclusion drawn is an unassailable logical conclusion deduced from the above premises. There are many examples in law where simple syllogistic reasoning provides a solution to legal problems.For example, the U.S. Constitution states that anyone under the age of 35 is ineligible to serve as President of the United States.Let us assume that a candidate for the presidency of the United States declares that he will be of the required age by the day he is sworn in, but this statement is contradicted by his competing candidates.After a court or campaign committee has ruled that the former's assertion is unsupported, the conclusion that he is ineligible for the presidency of the United States follows necessarily from the application of the major premise contained in the constitutional provision to the facts of the case.Or let us suppose further that a statute states, "A person is guilty of theft if he steals movable property belonging to another." Then the court can draw the logical conclusion that A has committed the crime of theft, and this conclusion is impeccably convincing.Of course, it is entirely possible for a court to be misled by unreliable testimony and to reach wrong conclusions about the merits of the case, but this possibility does not negate the fact that the court reached its conclusions on the basis of deductive reasoning . If A takes B's car just to take a trip from New York to San Francisco and back to New York, and if he returns the car to B after returning to New York, then the problem changes significantly, and thus the problem arises, That is, whether the act of A falls within the scope of the term "theft" used in the larceny statute, or whether this concept contains the meaning of excluding those situations where the same thing is used temporarily.If another provision of the statute or a binding jurisprudence of the Court of Final Appeal ever gave the ambiguous term a broad meaning and could regulate this provisional use, the judge could have two major premises—the original The statute and the authoritative interpretation of it—and from these two premises must follow the syllogistic conclusion of guilt.It is of course also possible that the legislative history of an ambiguous statute may provide answers to the interpretation problems facing the courts, so that, if it can be found that the legislator's interpretation of the meaning of a statute's word, concept, or phrase Unanimous determination, then this unanimity can provide a supplementary source for the court to make deductive conclusions. In some cases, the judge will find that there are no statutes or other established rules to guide his trial work, but he will be able to deduce the possible applicable rules or in principle.If this happens, then we can say that the judge is using inductive reasoning to deduce general rules from particular cases.For example, a series of cases have shown that people who buy food or drugs in retail stores and are seriously injured by consuming them have been held to be entitled to recover damages from the manufacturers of those items.From the above precedent, the judge could deduce the rule that a manufacturer, even in the absence of a contractual relationship, is liable for damages to a buyer injured by the use of his defective product. It should be emphasized, however, that generalizations drawn inductively from particular cases presenting common elements seldom meet logical necessity.If, for example, in a series of product liability cases, the buyer's life was at risk as a result of the use of a defective product, the question arises whether the rules inferred from these precedents should be limited to such cases, or Whether the rule should be extended to cases that do not involve life-threatening risks.If, in all the earlier cases, the goods purchased were only food or medicines, there remains an open question whether the rule could reasonably be considered to be limited to those types of products, or whether the rule should be extended to other Products capable of causing injury.Once a judge has in mind what he believes to be the rule contained in earlier cases, he uses deductive reasoning to apply that rule to the facts in the suit before him. The open structure of legal rules is not only manifested in the fact that judges can use inductive reasoning methods to derive them from precedents, even when a rule is very clearly stated in an authoritative case or a series of such cases. Under common law systems, a court of final appeal also has fairly broad powers: to amend a rule made by a judge, to create some exceptions to the rule, or to declare an earlier precedent invalid altogether.In the common law system, there is no equivalent power to the above-mentioned power with respect to the rules of statutory law, but it is recorded in examples that the courts, whether in the Roman law system or the common law system, recognize the law of equity to the statutory law exceptions to the provisions, in order to avoid grossly unjust results. Reasoning by analogy is the extension of a rule of law to a factual situation not covered by the terms of the rule but considered to be within the scope of the policy principles underlying the rule.For example, if there is a rule that an executor may not sue in a place other than that appointed him as executor, then by analogy this rule may be extended to administrators of an estate.This extension of the rule is based on a rationale believed to be contained in the rule, namely, that the powers of court-appointed officials acting as agents should be limited to the extent to which they perform official acts. within national jurisdiction.In addition, there is another example of analogy, that is, a rule or set of rules-rules creating negligence liability for sellers, buyers, landlords, lessees and trustees, etc., does not exist to limit the principle to apply only to the above The same applies to other classes of debtors in cases where there is persuasive grounds for listing various debtors. In cases where reasoning by analogy is used, the extended rationale or extended principle which forms the basis of the final judgment is not forced upon the judge by logical necessity.From the point of view of logical analysis, the court always has the option of resorting to the method of argument contrario.In the first example above, a court could take the position that the rule prohibiting suits in other states does not include administrators, suggesting that they should be excluded from the prohibition.In the second example above, the enumeration of various specific obligors provided the premise for drawing the logical conclusion that general liability for negligent performance was not the original intention of the rule maker. The question of whether it is legal to apply a rule by analogy does not depend on deductive logic but on considerations of policy and justice.A basic principle of justice holds that the law should treat substantially similar situations in the same way.The purpose of applying the rule by analogy is to help realize this principle of justice by treating cases falling within the same policy principle alike.But in certain areas of the law courts have very good reasons for disregarding this principle of justice in the light of other fundamental principles which are considered superior in particular circumstances.For example, the use of analogies is prohibited in the area of ​​criminal law because the uncertainty associated with whether to use analogies is deemed inconsistent with the need to clearly inform potential criminals of what the law allows and what it prohibits.In common law countries, analogous application of non-criminal statutes is even discouraged in most cases, in order to ensure that reliance on the wording of the statute is a measure of anticipation of the scope of application of the statute. It is sometimes claimed that analogy can be described as reasoning from one particular to another, in contrast to deductive reasoning (about reasoning from the general to the particular) and inductive reasoning (which constitutes reasoning from the particular to the general).For example, let us assume that a judgment awards relief to a person whose right to use his real property has been impeded by gas from a nearby factory.Let us also assume that, in a later case, the right of personal use was hindered by a major military exercise; since the facts of the two cases are basically similar, the court applies the principle of the earlier judgment by analogy. rule.The court in the first case may not have articulated the premises upon which its decision was based, while the judge in the second case bases its decision on a similar interpretation of the facts without relying on any explicit rule.Such is the case of reasoning from one particular case to another. Further analysis will show, however, that the Court cannot be certain that the decision in the first instance was made without some generalization embodying policy considerations that deal with the factual circumstances of the earlier as well as the current case. Whether the results obtained in the first case should also be obtained in the second case.The general generalization implied in the first judgment ("An owner of a house is entitled to compensation if his right to use the property has been seriously affected by gases or fumes from an industrial factory"), according to The analogy is extended to the case where the harmful nuisance is caused by noise rather than air pollution.The broader policy principle underlying both cases holds that the property owner has the right to prevent pollutants from interfering with his right to use the property.Once this principle has been recognized by the courts, the subsequent application of this principle to the facts of the case has no syllogistic necessity, if the court has the power to make exceptions to the principle.For example, the court may find that the owner purchased his property in an industrially developed town block and, therefore, should be deemed to have voluntarily accepted the risk of nuisance from smoke or noise. The above considerations suggest that formal logic has a relatively limited role in solving legal problems.When a statute rule or a rule made by a judge—whose meaning is clear or clarified by an earlier authoritative interpretation—is binding on the court trying the case, it functions as a tool of deductive reasoning.But on the other hand, when courts have some degree of discretion to interpret the words of statutes, to recognize certain exceptions to their orders, to extend or limit the scope of application of a rule made by a judge, or to invalidate such rules, the syllogism Logical methods are of little use in solving these problems.Even if one intends to maximize the scope of deductive reasoning in the judiciary by adopting a wide-ranging code regulating a large number of detailed circumstances, the gaps and areas of ambiguity in positive legal systems will still be extremely wide, And it is broad enough to set restrictive barriers to the applicability of the syllogistic method of logic.We no longer believe in the possibility of conceptual jurisprudence, because the purpose of creating conceptual jurisprudence is to construct a system of legal concepts that is strict and consistent in definition, and expects this system to be acceptable to the courts. All cases provide reliable, mechanical operating standards.And "it will never succeed in making the law ... a wholly deductive institution." On the other hand, it is also inappropriate to deny or narrow down the role of formal logic in law.When Judge Holmes put forward his classic adage that "the life of the law is not in logic but in experience," he was concerned with how to "determine the rules by which men should be governed," rather than discussing such an issue. A case in which a judge is obliged to try a case in accordance with a rule of law which is clearly applicable to the case.In situations of this nature, formal logic functions as an important tool for equal and fair law enforcement.It requires judges to enforce legal orders consistently and without bias.For example, if there is a statute punishing bribery of government officials, and a person has been identified as having engaged in such bribery, the judge or jury should draw the necessary conclusions required by the logic of the syllogism, and also The use of prejudice or other irrelevant considerations to resolve the case should be discouraged.Although deductive logic cannot solve the most difficult problems in the legal order, this does not mean that the interrelationship between logic and experience is antagonistic or contradictory.If we do not completely disregard moral and social considerations, or mistake logic for "clock-work" reasoning, we must be able to conclude that logic and experience exercise judicial functions. In the process, it is not so much an enemy as an ally. According to Aristotle, dialectical reasoning is to seek "an answer to the question which of two contradictory statements should be accepted." When it is clear, well-known, or self-evident, we need not resort to dialectical reasoning.In that case, Aristotle held, reasoning proceeds by means of an argument expressing necessary truths, because it enables us to draw a deductive conclusion with great certainty.But on the other hand, when it becomes necessary to choose between two or more possible premises or basic principles, the view that there is only one correct answer to a problem must raise doubts, "because the choice There will be strong arguments in favor of either side." If that happens, then the best answers must be discovered through dialogue, debate, critical inquiry, and the defense of one point of view against another.Since there are no irrefutable "first principles" that make conclusions certain, all we can usually do is search for truth by presenting plausible, persuasive, and reasonable arguments.Aristotle pointed out that we can appeal to the general opinion of the people or the majority when enumerating reasons, or we can tend to rely on the views of the most prestigious and knowledgeable people in society.Our job of persuasion is sometimes made more difficult by the fact that perspectives often collide.Once we have established, through the dialectical screening procedure, a viable premise that has the potential to form the basis of an acceptable conclusion, we can apply the syllogistic deductive method to the solution of a specific problem. In the field of law, there are three main situations where it is necessary for judges to use dialectical reasoning in resolving disputes.这三类情形是：（1）法律未曾规定简洁的判决原则的新情形；（2）一个问题的解决可以适用两个或两个以上互相抵触的前提但却必须在它们之间做出真正选择的情形；（3）尽管存在着可以调整所受理的案件的规则或先例，但是法院在行使其所被授予的权力时考虑到该规则或先例在此争议事实背景下尚缺乏充分根据而拒绝适用它的情形。在所有上述情形中，法院不可能通过分析的论辩方式，亦就是用演绎、归纳或类推等方法去解决争议问题。在这种性质的情形中，即使是律师在试图劝说法院做出有利于其当事人的结论时，也不可避免地要诉诸于辩证推理方式。 上文提到的第一类情形所关注的乃是那些被人们常常称之为“未规定案件”的情形。这种情形也许会发生在新创设的法律领域中，如原子能或环境控制领域中，它也会发生在某个传统的法律领域中，如合同与侵权领域中；这种情形是在现行有效的原则不能被适当地适用或扩大适用于异常组合的事实时才发生的。如果这种情况发生，那么就有必要在处理这种迄今仍属悬而未规定的问题时把那些所应考虑的实用主义观点或要求放在重要的地位上。 “海因斯诉纽约中央铁路公司”（Hynes v.New York Central Railroad）案，乃是上述第二类问题的一个范例。在该案中，一个16岁的小男孩游过哈勒姆河之后，爬上了一块从该河布朗克斯（Bronx）一端的堤岸处伸出的跳板。该跳板是设置在铁路地段上的。正当他站在跳板的顶端准备跳水时，他被该铁路公司所有的电线杆上掉下的高压电线触死并被击入河中。在这个孩子的母亲所提出的损害赔偿诉讼中，两造的辩护律师提出了两种相互抵触的类推观点。铁路方律师将事故发生时该男孩的地位类推为非法入侵私有地者的地位，因而该土地所有人对他不承担应有注意的责任。而原告律师则争辩说，该跳板以上或以下的空间乃是公共空间，因而该男孩按照类推法应被视为公路上的行人。下级法院采纳了被告方提出的那种类推并驳回了原告方的起诉，然而上诉法院则接受了相反观点并推翻了原判。撰写此判决理由的卡多佐法官指出，此案中双方各自的类推从逻辑上讲都是可能的，但他却得出结论认为，正义和理性要求被告承担这种法律责任。对这一判决理由的研究表明，在那些无法从某个明确适用的法律前提中推论出结果的情形中，所需要的推理是颇为复杂的。 上文所列举的第三类情形包含了两套不同但又相关的问题。司法过程中常常发生这样的情况，即尽管法官可以获得一个表现为规则的大前提，但是他却认为该规则业已过时并且与当代现实完全相悖。如果发生这种情况，法官就可以摈弃这种规则——假如法律制度授予了他这种权力——并用一种更适合于当前需要的规范去替代它。显而易见，他为支持新规则而提出的理由构成了论证某一新的规范性解决方法为正当的努力，而并不构成从某个特定的前提中演绎出法律结果的努力。 一个与之有关的问题会在下述情形中出现，如法官决定对一个先已存在的规则设定一种例外，而不是期望完全否弃该规则。例如，尽管《反欺诈法》（Statute of Frauds）要求不动产转让合同采用书面形式，但是英国大法官法庭（以及步其后尘的美国法院）却仍然强制实施这类合同中的口头合同，只要一方当事人已部分履行了该协议。在这里，法院必须构想出具有说服力的论据以捍卫与现行有效的实在法规则并不一致的衡平原则。 在所有上述三类情形中，司法判决决定者都面临着一个真正选择的问题。这既是一种选用合适的规范去填补法律空白的选择，又是一种确定一种类推优于另一个与之相对的类推的决定，或者是根据自由裁量权而用一更为适时的规则去替代某一过时的规则。人们常常这样认为，法官在这些案件中所作的决定，是受制于其“情感意志”因素的，如直觉预感、非理性的偏爱、以及为事后文饰所掩盖的多少有些武断的命令等等。对于这种观点我们不敢苟同。法律事件中的辩证论证基本上是符合理性的，尽管我们也必须承认，感情上的潜在影响或不可言传的偏见影响并不总是能够避免的。 正如丹尼斯·劳埃德（Dennis Lloyd）所正确指出的，法官所作的选择，“并不符合从特定前提中用归纳方法推知结论的逻辑，但它却有一种自身的逻辑。这种逻辑是建立在理性考虑基础之上的，而这就使它同武断的判断完全区别开来。”这种逻辑的特征在于它是实质性的，而不是形式上的。套用约翰·狄威（John Dewey）的话来说，它“所关注的是对调查的控制，以使它产生出有根据的主张。”这是一种颇具意义的学科，它使我们能够对疑难情形进行透彻的探究，以揭示某个问题的所有有关方面并将它们置于关注的中心，进而发现解决该问题的合理的方式方法。对所有支持和反对这种审慎的解决方法的论点进行仔细而认真的思考，乃是这一过程的重要部分。如果最终得出的结论不只是基于个别依据而且还得到了诸多理由所具有的集合力量的支持，那么它的合理性和说服力通常就会得到增强。 需要强调指出的是，法律中的这种选择逻辑并不只限于那种纯粹目的论的、注重结果的推理。在某种程度上讲，这是一种与结果有关的逻辑，而在另一方面，它则是一种以先例为基础的逻辑。只要有可能，一个有能力的法官就会使用判断标准，当然，这些标准并不是那种毫无控制的意志或主观偏爱的产物，而是以整个法律秩序与社会秩序为基础的，也是以那些渊源于传统、社会习俗和时代的一般精神为基础的。在对判案过程中的意志因素起限制作用的客观化要素中，主要有那些在文化中业经牢固确立的价值规范，贯穿于法律制度中的基本原则，显而易见的情势必要性以及占支配地位的公共政策方针。在诸多情形中，上述渊源的伸缩性，可以使法官对其所作的判决的预期结果加以考虑。 我们不应当这样认为，即人们必须在推理的分析形式与辩证形式之间做出排他性的选择，即使用一种推理形式就得排除采用另一种推理形式。实践中经常发生的情况是，这两种论证方式在同一案件的审理过程中往往会以某种混合的形式出现。例如，尽管法官能够发现解决某个法律问题的某种一般性原则或某种前提，但是为了证明把它适用于所受理的案件是正确的，法官还需要对此做一种详尽的、复杂的和辅助性的推理。 美国最高法院在“米兰达诉亚里桑那州”（Miranda v.Arizona）一案中所作的判决为混合运用分析性论证方式与辩证性论证方式提供了佐证。在这一案件中，美国最高法院试图证明，为联邦宪法所认可的反对自证犯罪（self-incrimination）的特权，即强制警察通知涉嫌犯罪人有权保持沉默并且可以获得辩护律师的帮助，乃是合法审讯的先决条件。由于第五修正案只是指出，在刑事检控中，不得强迫被告作不利于自己的证明，所以用直接的三段论演绎方法是无法从该宪法规定中推论出下述结论的：即使警官在事实上不强迫被告说话，但是在审讯前亦必须提出法定警告。 美国最高法院通过仔细且详尽的推理过程表明，警察局在审讯时所笼罩的气氛历来是强制性的，因此这就会把微妙和间接的压力施加于被捕者，减弱他抗拒的意志并引导他供出其案件的秘密。为了给这一判断提供经验上的根据，美国最高法院从警察所使用的颇具影响的指南手册中广引博采，旨在证明通过各种小计谋、暗示手段以及误导性言论，常常可以使被审问者陷入圈套而做出表明自己有罪的陈述，即使按照传统上的理解，这些陈述可以被称为是“自愿的”。美国最高法院还对其裁定所可能受到的相反的批评观点进行了讨论，特别对有效防止犯罪的社会需要以反对宽泛解释对抗自证犯罪的特权这一论点进行了讨论。因此，尽管该法院得出的最终结论，在某种意义上讲，是从法律正式渊源中演绎出来的，但是该法院所遵循的推理过程完全背离了论证的分析模式，并且运用了典型的辩证推论的工具。 按照汉斯·凯尔森（Hans Kelsen）的观点，依据一有效规范对一种事实行为所作的应当是这样或不应当是这样的判断，就是一种价值判断。由于他的观点比较笼统，所以就很难说他的观点对法律过程具有什么意义。法官把他发现的事实归入某种正式或非正式的法律渊源的各种行为，在性质上并不都是评价性的。在法官运用分析推理的场合，司法价值论的适用范围极小，或者说是大大缩小了。在法官运用辩证推理的场合，对业经深思的结果是否公正或正义进行评价的范围，也许是非常广泛的，但是它却要受到社会制度性质的限制。 当一核心含义清晰明了的规范可明确适用于某个案件的事实时，司法审判就不再需要价值判断了。因此，如果一项谋杀毋庸置疑地得到了确凿证据的证实，那么被告犯有谋杀罪的结论就不再需要法院进行价值判断了。在这种情形中，法院得出的这一结论乃是用三段论演绎逻辑法得出的。 即使当一法律规定的含义和适用范围不甚明确的时候，价值论方面的考虑也未必就会成为阐释和解释过程中的一部分。例如，假定一个国家在其宪法中规定，“任何人都不得被剥夺受法律平等保护的权利。”当法院根据这一规定所要裁决的第一个这种案件出现时，就会产生这样的疑问，即该规定是否只要求公正地实施法律而不考虑个人，或者除此之外它是否还要求法律本身的内容不含有差别待遇。让我们进一步假定，一条确立已久的规范规定：有关宪法解释中的疑问，将根据制宪会议的意图加以解决。如果制宪会议就模棱两可的规定所进行的辩论明确表明，几种可能的解释中有一种解释得到了大多数会员的支持，那么法院在行使其解释职能的时候就不享有规范上的自由裁量权。但是另一方面，如果法院为解决这一问题而得不到任何历史上的指导、先例方面的指导或其他指导，那么它就不得不用自己的资源去填补宪法结构中的这一空白。如果发生这种情形，法院就不得不根据它关于正义与合理政策的观念进行价值判断，以确定哪一种对该条款的解释更可取。 当法官在未规定案件中创制新的规范或废弃过时的规则以采纳某种适时规则的时候，价值判断在司法过程中会发挥最大限度的作用。在这类情形中，法官在权衡诉讼过程所具有的利弊时运用的辩证推理，往往缺乏相对的确定性，有时还缺乏演绎、归纳和类推等推理形式所具有的那种无可辩驳的说服力。简言之，在不受先已存在的规范和原则指导的相互冲突的利益间进行选择，就需要进行价值判断。 即使在法律的创制领域，司法自由裁量权通常也要受到社会制度一般性质的限制。正如我们在前文中所指出的，一个文化的价值模式趋于构成阻碍司法评价自由的障碍。例如，在一个承认广泛的契约自由的自由社会中，法院很难以某项协议与公共政策和正义相抵触为理由而否定它的效力（当然以实在法没有明确禁止这种协议为条件），除非能够拿出强有力的论据表明该协议违反了基本的集体道德观念，或者表明该协议的实施会危害社会组织的完整性。法官所作的价值判断中只有极少数是自主的，所谓自主，在这里是从它们独立于当时当地的习俗、基本前提和社会理想的意义上来讲的。 先进的法律制度往往倾向于限制价值论推理（axiological reasoning）在司法过程中的适用范围，因为以主观的司法价值偏爱为基础的判决，通常要比以正式或非正式的社会规范为基础的判决表现出更大程度的不确定性和不可预见性。有论者认为，诉讼案中的各方当事人通常都不希望受司法官员的个人习性及其即时性反应的支配。再者，如卡尔·拉伦兹（Karl Larenz）所指出的，司法主观主义（judicial subjectivism）既与法律确定性这一公共利益不相符合，亦与同等情形应当平等对待的正义要求相违背。甚至在使用仲裁或调解方法的场合，人们通常也期望仲裁者与调解者能够重视他们社会中的法律基本原则和公共政策。 因此，我们可以相当稳妥地指出，价值判断在法律制度中所起的主要作用在于它们被整合进了作为审判客观渊源的宪法规定、法规以及其他种类的规范之中。法官们在解释这些渊源时，往往必须弄清楚它们得以颁布与认可所赖以为基的目的和价值论方面的考虑。对法律制度与社会制度中所固有的价值评价进行这种考察，显然与司法机关主观设定的价值模式不同。甚至在司法机关自己创制一些体现某种社会价值判断的规范的场合，采纳它们也是由普遍的社会正义观念促成的。 然而，将社会价值判断引入客观的实在法渊源的过程中，也存在着明确的限制。当法院在缺乏较为清楚明确的指导的情形下而不得不诉诸一般的正义原则和公共政策之时，常常存在于宪法规定和法规之模糊领域中的那种模棱两可性和不确定性就会变得更加厉害。另外，还可能发生这种情况，即在上述情形中，法院不得不在相互冲突的价值标准之间做出抉择。因此，在“丹尼斯诉美国”（Dennis v.United States）一案中，美国最高法院在维护1940年的《史密斯法案》（Smith Act）——该法案宣布以革命手段推翻政府的言行为不合法——时，更倾向于的乃是国家安全价值，而不是言论自由价值。该法院认为，尽管宪法有效条款并未提及国家安全，但是国家安全价值却体现了政府自卫的固有权利，因此在某些情形下，必须优先考虑的是这种固有权利，而不是需要具体保障的个人自由。关于这个问题，无论是实在法还是构成宪法结构之基础的一般价值系统，都未能给出明确的答案。在这种情况下，法官个人的主观信念在解决这类争议时也许会使平衡发生倾斜。 法律为社会所履行的职责，必然要求对培训法律工作者的方式方法进行控制。如果法律制度的主要目的在于确保和维护社会机体的健康，从而使人民过上有价值的和幸福向上的生活，那么就必须把法律工作者视为“社会医生”，而他们的工作则应当有助益于法律终极目标的实现。毋庸置疑，从事立法性活动的法律工作者（既可作为立法者也可作为立法者的顾问）致力于或应当致力于社会利益之增进的工作。但是个人之间或群体之间争议问题的长期存在，也必须被看作是社会健康的一个问题，因为不必要的破坏性的敌意和冲突的长期存在，并不有益于社会中和睦和幸福的生活。因此我们可以说，法官与律师——通过共同努力而使争议得到公平合理的裁决——就是在执行社会医生的任务。如果一个纠纷根本得不到解决，那么社会机体上就可能产生溃烂的伤口；如果此纠纷是以不适当的和不公正的方式解决的，那么社会机体上就会留下一个创伤，而且这种创伤的增多，又有可能严重危及人们对令人满意的社会秩序的维护。 人们肯定会完全赞同拉尔夫·富克斯（Ralph Fuchs）教授所得出的结论，即“当今训练法律工作者的重大必要性，在于人们对下述问题的认识有了相当的发展：现代社会的制度及其存在的问题、法律工作者在解决这些问题和运用这些制度过程中的作用以及从职业上参与解决那些法律工作者处理的重大问题所需要的技术等问题”。尽管法律工作者的一些教育任务必须同这种训练结合起来，但是，这些任务必须放在法律工作者理论专业的非法律部分去完成。研读法律的学生如果对其本国的历史相当陌生，那么他就不可能理解该国法律制度的演变过程，也不可能理解该国法律制度对其周遭的历史条件的依赖关系。如果他对世界历史和文明的文化贡献不了解，那么他也就很难理解那些可能对法律产生影响的重大国际事件。如果他不精通一般政治理论、不能洞见政府的结构与作用，那么他在领悟和处理宪法和公法等问题时就会遇到障碍。如果他缺乏经济学方面的训练，那么他就无法认识到许多法律领域中都存在的法律问题与经济问题之间的紧密关系。如果他没有受过哲学方面的基础训练，那么他在解决法理学和法学理论的一般问题时就会感到棘手，而这些问题往往会对司法和其他法律过程产生决定性的影响。 但是，甚至在提高专业能力的较为严格的法律教育专业阶段，也必须始终提醒学生注意，法律乃是整个社会生活的一部分，它绝不存在于真空之中。法学并不是社会科学中一个自足的独立领域，能够被封闭起来或者可以与人类努力的其他分支学科相脱离。如果教员不阐明做出判决的政治与社会背景，法院的许多判决就无法被理解，也无从得到恰当的分析。除非我们认识到，在许多较为陈旧的法规或法律规则颁布之时所盛行的正义理想同我们现在所拥有的正义理想是不同的，否则这些法规或法律规则就会变得奇怪、甚或荒谬了。 如果一个人只是个法律工匠，只知道审判程序之程规和精通实在法的专门规则，那么他的确不能成为第一流的法律工作者。布兰代斯（Brandeis）法官曾经指出，“一个法律工作者如果不研究经济学与社会学，那么他就极容易成为一个社会公敌（a public enemy）。”戴维·保罗·布朗（David Paul Brown）是一位生活在19世纪初期的费城律师，据说他说过这样的话，“一个只懂法律的人，只是一个十足的傻汉而已。” 一个法律工作者如果希望正确地预测法官和其他政府官员的行为，那么他就必须能够把握当下的趋势，洞见其所处的社会的发展动向。如果法律工作者记不起一些实在法规则或条文，那么他们随时可以从教科书、法规汇编或百科全书中查到它们。但是，有关政治、社会、经济以及道德等力量——它们在法律秩序中发挥着作用并决定着法律秩序的进程——的知识，就不那么容易获得了，而且必须通过对社会现实进行长期且敏锐的考察才能逐渐获得。为使自己成为一个真正有用的公仆，法律工作者就必须首先是一个具有文化修养和广博知识的人士。 教授法律知识的院校，除了对学生进行实在法规和法律程序方面的基础训练以外，还必须教导他们象法律工作者一样去思考问题和掌握法律论证与推理的复杂艺术。但是，法律教育不应当仅限于上述即时性目的，还应当向学生展示通过充分认识与这一职业相关的知识方能达致的最为宽泛的视界。这些视界能使他们关注到法律在生活和社会一般哲学中的地位，法律的伦理目的以及这些目的的局限性，和一个社会能够期望从具有正义精神的法律制度中所获得的利益的性质与范围。亚伯拉罕·弗莱克斯纳（Abraham Flexner）曾提出过这样一个问题，“如果我们的律师和法官不仅在先例方面博学，而且还极为精通历史学、伦理学、经济学和政治学，那么紧张关系就会得到缓和、社会进化的实现也会伴随更少的摩擦，这种情况难道不可能吗？”从一般舆论来看，法律制度所应得的尊严与威望，在很大程度上取决于该制度的工作人员的认识广度以及他们对其所服务的社会的责任感的性质与强度。 用霍姆斯（Holmes）法官一篇著名论文中的一段文字来结束上述关于法律教育之目的的简略讨论，或许是恰当的： 我在对诸多成功之士的了解基础上确信这一点，即仅仅成为大公司的律师并拥有5万美元的薪水，并不能赢得幸福。伟大到足以赢得赞誉的有识之士，除了成功以外尚需其他食粮。法律较为边际的方面和较为一般的方面，恰是人们应当普遍关注的。正是通过这些方面，你不仅会成为你职业中的大师，而且还能把你的论题同大千世界联系起来，得到空间和时间上的共鸣、洞见到它那深不可测的变化过程、领悟到普世性的规律。