A Lawyer's Truth: Notes for a Moral Philosophy of Litigation Practice
Is trial rhetoric, with its shadings, deliberate obfuscations, and outright deceptions, directly justified and limited by the same moral considerations which control important private conversations, where the same devices may sometimes be appropriate? Is a trial like any other dialogue that can be c...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1985
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| In: |
Journal of law and religion
Year: 1985, Volume: 3, Issue: 2, Pages: 229-276 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Is trial rhetoric, with its shadings, deliberate obfuscations, and outright deceptions, directly justified and limited by the same moral considerations which control important private conversations, where the same devices may sometimes be appropriate? Is a trial like any other dialogue that can be called moral? Or does such speech find its justification and limitations solely in its purely instrumental relation to the preservation of ordinary moral values—justice or respect for rights—as does killing in warfare? Is a trial lawyer's talking like a soldier's killing? But this cannot be right. Surely a lawyer's speech can contribute to a loss of life, liberty, or property, but dialogue, as the specifically moral medium of human relations, would seem intrinsically valuable, the preferred medium for things of public concern, the polar opposite of violence. Perhaps, then, the conversation which takes place in the courtroom is both controlled by internal, noninstrumental norms, as in the first view, and discontinuous with ordinary moral conversations, as in the second: a form of distinctively political argument, intrinsically valuable, not subject to ordinary moral stric-tures, a realm apart. |
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| ISSN: | 2163-3088 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of law and religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/1051179 |