Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

4-27-2006

SSRN Discipline

PSN Subject Matter eJournals; *Humanities - Forthcoming Areas; Religious Studies Research Network; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence & Legal Philosophy eJournals; Financial Economics Network; Economics Research Network; Legal Scholarship Network; PRN Subject Matter eJournals; Philosophy Research Network; Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies; Law School Research Papers - Public Law & Legal Theory; Political Institutions eJournals; Humanities Network; Political Science Network

Abstract

The subject of this paper is Blackstones famous declaratory theory of law the claim that judges find the law rather than make it Blackstones claim is widely rejected in the legal academy often because Blackstone is wrongly associated with the brooding omnipresence view of law rejected in cases like Erie Guaranty Trust and Southern Pacific Co v Jensen I argue that Blackstones theory fails for other reasons namely because his account does not square well with law practice as it exists and because his distinction between legislative lawmaking and judicial declaration is ultimately unsustainableDespite its faults Blackstones account of judging remains popular in some circles particularly among evangelicals The patrician Oxford law professor seems an unlikely hero for American evangelicalism which is a fundamentally populist movement Nevertheless I argue that evangelicals have their reasons for admiring Blackstone Historically the assault on Blackstone in American law schools coincided with the academic movement to secularize American law Philosophically Blackstones moral realism and epistemic optimism sit well with evangelical habits of mindWhile Blackstones moral realism may be appealing to orthodox Christians including evangelicals his account of law ought to be unacceptable on the basis of their own theological presuppositions because it represents a deficient understanding of traditional Christian teaching about creation The traditional Christian theological understanding of creation emphasizes the world as a part of the larger story of Gods purposes This understanding does not depend on any particular account of how the world came to be the way it is but it has some surprising implications for how we understand the human activity of lawmaking Indeed it helps illuminate why accounts of law that treat law as either merely found or merely made have proven unsatisfactory

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