Abstract

.The author summarizes the essential elements of a general theory he is developing which he calls “The Formal Character of Law.” He explains that law's formal character is a potentially major branch of legal theory that is still relatively unexplored. In his view, it is possible to identify formal attributes in legal rules, other basic legal constructs such as interpretive method, the principles of stare decisis, legal reasons, and legislative and adjudicative processes, and a legal system viewed as a whole. For example, a legal rule has, in varying degrees, such formal attributes as generality, definiteness, and simplicity. Such attributes are formal in the sense that they apply to or accommodate highly variable content and do not prescribe or proscribe content. Of course, legal phenomena have other characteristics besides their formality. The author's main technique for developing his theory is to address a common set of questions to the varied formal attributes of , , and above. Among other things, the answers to these questions further explicate how law is formal, demonstrate that law is not merely a means of serving problem‐specific policy but also serves formal values , treats the relations between form and content—specially how good form begets good content and bad form bad content, explores the design and implementation of appropriate formality—its “anatomy and physiology,” and analyses the “pathology” of legal form including not only the “formalistic” , but also the “sub‐stantivistic,” and shows how the overall theory is important both jurisprudentially and in practical ways