Abstract

This article deals with the problem of the rationality of legal judgement, which is usually regarded as a quality of the justification of the decision, of its political meaning, or of the deliberating process of judging. The rationality of legal judgement is, however, a quality of all these aspects, so this article claims, because it is part of the way a political community shapes itself in public debate, in political discussion, and in the legislative and judicial creation of the law. This idea is elaborated in three parts. In the first part, perusal of a famous case shows that the justification of a legal judgement is threefold: the judge appeals to material grounds, follows considerations of procedural justice, and speaks with a chosen ethos. An inquiry into the political meaning of these factors in the second part shows that they serve communication in a community according to rules of public rationality, thus enabling the law to play its intermediate role in a pluralistic society. Following Plato’s analogy between justice in the state and in the soul, the third part focuses on judicial deliberation as an activity of the rational and imaginative mind. Legal judgement again seems to involve deliberation about the balance of conflicting reasons, which requires an act of judgement. This seems to be the characteristic specific to the rationality of legal judgement