Harmful Thoughts
Essays on Law, Self, and Morality
Chapter One
LAW, COMMUNITY, AND COMMUNICATION
I follow the fashion of listing no more, and no less, than three items in a title. If it were not for this fashion, my title would have included two more items-interpretation and organization. I shall relate these concepts in the following way: I shall pair community with interpretation and organization with communication. An important strand in contemporary legal and social theory-I have in mind primarily the work of Ronald Dworkin in this country and Jürgen Habermas in Europe-is fixated on the first couple consisting of community and interpretation. In this it gives us only a partial representation of social reality and, specifically, of law; it paints only half, and probably the less significant half, of the picture. But drawing attention to the other elements in the picture, those I call organization and communication, does not simply supplement it. Rather, the fuller painting, I hope to show, bears scant resemblance to the partial rendering by Dworkin and others who belong in his mold. The linchpin that holds together the various terms I want to rela ... read full excerpt from Harmful Thoughts: Essays on Law, Self, and Morality ebook
