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Taking Rights Cynically: A Review of Critical Legal Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

David Andrew Price
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The Critical Legal Studies movement has been described by one of its leading proponents as having “undermined the central ideas of modern legal thought and put another conception of law in their place.” Whether or not the movement has actually succeeded in doing so, this is a fair description of its ambition. The scholarship of the CLS movement disputes the idea that the power of judges and other government officials either can or should be constrained by sources of law such as constitutions, statutes, and precedent. It is marked by a rejection of the belief that “legal argument” can or should be an enterprise distinct from political argument. It is also marked by a rejection of “legal rights” as a desirable or even possible means of protecting individuals from government power.

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Articles
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The Cambridge Law Journal , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , July 1989 , pp. 271 - 301
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Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 1989

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References

page 271 note 1 Unger, R., The Critical Legal Studies Movement (1986), p. 1Google Scholar.

page 271 note 2 For those who want to peruse a variety of CLS works in a convenient form, several collections will be useful: Critical Legal Studies: Articles, Notes, and Book Reviews selected from the pages of the Harvard Law Review (1986); Critical Legal Studies Symposium (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 1; Kairys, D. (ed.), The Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique (1982)Google Scholar. Another leading work is Unger, supra note 1. That book is a slightly revised version of Unger, , “The Critical Legal Studies Movement” (1983) 96Google Scholar Harv.L.Rev. 561. An extensive compilation of CLS articles appears in Kennedy, and Klare, , “A Bibliography of Critical Legal Studies” (1984) 94Google Scholar Yale L.J. 461.

page 272 note 3 See Kelman, , “Trashing” (1984) 36Google Scholar Stan.L.Rev. 293, 326.

page 272 note 4 Schwartz, , “With Gun and Camera Through Darkest CLS-Land” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 413, 420Google Scholar.

page 272 note 5 Taub and Schneider, “Perspectives on Women's Subordination and the Role of Law” in Kairys, supra note 2, at p. 123. “The law can thus purport to guarantee equality while simultaneously denying it.” Id. Equal pay laws are not distinctively liberal, having the support of conservatives and liberals alike, but this example is still suggestive of the CLS approach toward liberal reforms.

page 272 note 6 Polan, “Toward A Theory of Law and Patriarchy” in Kairys, supra note 2, at p. 299.

page 273 note 7 See, e.g., Olsen, , “Statutory Rape: A Feminist Critique of Rights Analysis” (1984) 63 Tex.L.Rev. 387, 389 n. 7Google Scholar; Tushnet, , “An Essay On Rights” (1984) 62 Tex.L.Rev. 1363Google Scholar.

page 273 note 8 See, e.g., Kennedy, , “Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication” (1976) 89 Harv.L.Rev. 1685, 1717–1722Google Scholar.

Communitarian criticisms of liberalism also appear, of course, in the writings of Burke, Rousseau and Marx, among others.

page 274 note 9 Gabel, and Kennedy, , “Roll Over Beethoven” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 1, 26Google Scholar.

page 274 note 10 Id. at p. 33.

page 274 note 11 Sparer, , “Fundamental Human Rights, Legal Entitlements, and the Social Struggle: A Friendly Critique of the Critical Legal Studies Movement” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 509, 510 n. 4Google Scholar. Sparer refers to both his own work and that of the CLS movement as instances of “left scholarship”. Id. at pp. 509–510. Like Sparer and other writers, I use the term “leftist” here simply to refer to a part of the American political spectrum.

page 274 note 12 Id. at p. 512.

page 275 note 13 Delgado, , “The Ethereal Scholar: Does Critical Legal Studies Have What Minorities Want?” (1987) 22Google Scholar Harv. C.R.–C.L.L. Rev. 301, 305.

page 275 note 14 See Johnson, , “Do You Sincerely Want to be Radical?” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 247, 256 n. 29Google Scholar; Schwartz, supra note 4, at pp. 437–439.

page 275 note 15 The rule of law also limits the discretion of lawmakers as well as the discretion of judges and administrators. Lawmakers cannot arbitrarily impose penalties on disfavoured individuals; instead, laws must be formulated in a sufficiently general way. Lawmakers cannot ensnare people with secret or retroactive laws. Laws must not impose obligations that are impossible to meet. Professor Fuller referred to these and other requirements of legality as constituting an “inner morality of law.” See Fuller, L., The Morality of Law (rev. ed. 1969), pp. 46–91Google Scholar.

page 275 note 16 See Grey, , “Langdell's Orthodoxy” (1983) 45 U.Pitt.L.Rev. 1Google Scholar.

page 276 note 17 Horwitz, , “The Rule of Law: An Unqualified Human Good?” (1977) 86Google Scholar Yale L.J. 561, 566 (quoting Thompson, E., Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act (1975), p. 266Google Scholar). See also Horwitz, , “Rights” (1988) 23 Harv.C.R.–C.L.L.Rev. 393Google Scholar.

page 276 note 18 Kennedy, D., Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy (1983), p. 20 (emphasis in original)Google Scholar.

page 277 note 19 Unger, supra note 1, at p. 1.

page 277 note 20 See Hutchinson, and Monahan, , “Law, Politics, and the Critical Legal Scholars: The Unfolding Drama of American Legal Thought” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 199, 221–223Google Scholar.

page 277 note 21 See Note, “'Round and 'Round the Bramble Bush: From Legal Realism to Critical Legal Scholarship” (1982) 95 Harv.L.Rev. 1669, 1677 n. 58; Johnson, supra note 14, at pp. 250–251.

page 278 note 22 See, e.g., Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954); Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950); McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637 (1950); Missouri ex. rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938).

page 278 note 23 See Gordon, , “Critical Legal Histories” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 57, 102 n. 102Google Scholar.

page 278 note 24 See generally Note, “Critical Legal Studies as an Anti-Positivist Phenomenon” (1986) 72 Va.L.Rev. 983, 992–994.

page 278 note 25 See generally Heller, , “Structuralism and Critique” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 127Google Scholar; Kornhauser, , “The Great Image of Authority” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 349, 368 n. 57Google Scholar.

page 278 note 26 See generally Balkin, , “Deconstructive Practice and Legal Theory” (1987) 96 Yale L.J. 743Google Scholar; Nehamas, , “Truth and Consequences” The New Republic, 5 10. 1987, at p. 31Google Scholar.

page 279 note 27 See Note, “Round and 'Round the Bramble Bush: From Legal Realism to Critical Legal Scholarship” (1982) 95 Harv.L.Rev. 1669, 1671–1674.

page 279 note 28 (1935) 35 Colum.L.Rev. 809.

page 279 note 29 Id. at p. 815.

page 279 note 30 Frank, J., Law and the Modern Mind (1930)Google Scholar.

page 280 note 31 Id.. at pp. 244–245.

page 280 note 32 Lléwellyn, , “Realistic Jurisprudence” (1930) 30 Colum.L.Rev. 441, 454Google Scholar.

page 280 note 33 Id. (emphasis in original). On Llewellyn's contributions more generally, see Twining, W., Karl Llewellyn and the Realist Movement (1973)Google Scholar.

page 280 note 34 Cohen, supra note 28, at p. 842.

page 281 note 35 See White, , “From Realism to Critical Legal Studies: A Truncated Intellectual History” (1986) 40 S.W.L.J. 819, 824–825Google Scholar; Schlegel, , “American Legal Realism and Empirical Social Science: From the Yale Experience” (1979) 28 Buff.L.Rev. 459Google Scholar.

page 281 note 36 See Purcell, E., The Crisis of Democratic Theory (1973), pp. 159–178Google Scholar; White, , “The Evolution of Reasoned Elaboration: Jurisprudential Criticism and SocialChange” (1973) 59 Va.L.Rev. 279, 282–283Google Scholar.

page 281 note 37 See, e.g., Gordon, , “Critical Legal Histories” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 57, 69Google Scholar.

page 281 note 38 Boyle, , “The Politics of Reason: Critical Legal Theory and Local Social Thought” (1985) 133 U.Pa.Rev. 685, 697–698Google Scholar.

page 281 note 39 Id. at pp. 697–702. “Technocratic consciousness” in the law ”transcends previous ideologies that justified the oppression of one class by another: It actually justifies the oppression of ourselves by ourselves.”Id. at p. 702 (footnote omitted).

page 281 note 40 One body of contemporary scholarship attacked by CLS writers for these reasons is the “law and economics” school. See id. at p. 689 n. 8 (collecting sources); Kelman, M., A Guide to Critical Legal Studies (1987), pp. 114–185Google Scholar; Note, “Efficiency and a Rule of ‘Free Contract’: A Critique of Two Models of Law and Economics” (1984) 97 Harv.L.Rev. 978. Another is a group of liberal-to-radical empiricists, the Law and Society school, formed in the early 1960s and identified most closely with the University of Wisconsin.See White, supra note 35, at pp. 830–836; Kelman, supra note 3, at pp. 338–342.

David Trubek, who is considered part of both the CLS movement and the Law and Society school, has sought to bridge the sizable intellectual chasm between the two groups. See Trubek, , “Where the Action Is: Critical Legal Studies and Empiricism” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 575Google Scholar.

page 282 note 41 See, e.g., Fuller, and Purdue, , “The Reliance Interest in Contract Damages (pt. I)” (1936) 46 Yale L.J. 52Google Scholar; Cook, , “The Alienability of Choses in Action: A Reply to Professor Williston” (1917) 30 Harv.L.Rev. 449Google Scholar.

page 282 note 42 See Schlegel, , “Notes Toward an Intimate, Opinionated, and Affectionate History of the Conference on Critical Legal Studies” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 391, 407Google Scholar.

For examples of CLS writings on constitutional law, see Tushnet, M., Red, White, and Blue (1988)Google Scholar; Parker, , “The Past of Constitutional Theory–And Its Future” (1981) 42 Ohio St. L.J. 223Google Scholar; Tushnet, , “Truth, Justice, and the American Way: An Interpretation of Public Law Scholarship in the Seventies” (1979) 57 Tex.L.Rev. 1307Google Scholar; Freeman, , “Legitimizing Racial Discrimination Through Antidiscrimination Law: A Critical Review of Supreme Court Doctrine” (1978) 62 Minn.L.Rev. 1049Google Scholar. For a CLS treatment of criminal law, see Kelman, , “Interpretive Construction in the Substantive Criminal Law” (1981) 33 Stan.L.Rev. 591Google Scholar. CLS articles on labour law include Stone, “The Post-War Paradigm in American Labor Law” (1981) 90 Yale L.J. 1509Google Scholar; Klare, , “Judicial Deradicalization of the Wagner Act and the Origins of Modern Legal Consciousness, 1937–1941” (1978) 62 Minn.L.Rev. 265Google Scholar. Two examples of CLS work in traditional “private law” subjects are Kennedy, , “Distributive and Paternalist Motives in Contract and Tort Law, With Special Reference to Compulsory Terms and Unequal Bargaining Power” (1982) 41 Md.L.Rev. 563Google Scholar; Gabel, , “Intention and Structure in Contractual Conditions: Outline of a Method for Critical Legal Theory” (1977) 61 Minn.L.Rev. 601Google Scholar.

page 282 note 43 Tushnet, , “Critical Legal Studies and Constitutional Law: An Essay in Deconstruction” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 623, 625Google Scholar.

page 282 note 44 See generally Singer, , “Legal Realism Now” (1988) 76 Cal.L.Rev. 465, 503–532Google Scholar.

page 282 note 45 See, e.g., Dworkin, R., Law's Empire (1986), pp. 350–354Google Scholar; Ely, J., Democracy and Distrust (1980)Google Scholar.

page 283 note 46 Unger, supra note 1, at p. 11.

page 283 note 47 Kairys, “Legal Reasoning” in Kairys, supra note 2, at p. 17.

page 284 note 48 Gordon, supra note 23, at p. 125.

page 284 note 49 Id.

page 284 note 50 See Solum, , “On the Indeterminacy Crisis: Critiquing Critical Dogma” (1987) 54 U.Chi.L.Rev. 462Google Scholar; Herzog, , “As Many As Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast” (1987) 75 Cal.L.Rev. 609, 628–629Google Scholar; Schauer, , “Formalism” (1988) 97 Yale L.J. 509Google Scholar; Schauer, , “Easy Cases” (1985) 58 So.Cal.L.Rev. 399Google Scholar.

page 284 note 51 Solum, supra note 50, at p. 471.

page 284 note 52 See, e.g. Hart, H. L. A., The Concept of Law (1961)Google Scholar; Dworkin, R., Taking Rights Seriously (1977)Google Scholar.

page 285 note 53 Singer, , “The Player and the Cards: Nihilism and Legal Theory” (1984) 94 Yale L.J. 1, 54–55Google Scholar.

page 285 note 54 Trubek, supra note 40, at p. 578.

page 285 note 55 Unger, supra note 1, at p. 7.

page 286 note 56 Id. at p. 21.

page 287 note 57 Id. at p. 7.

page 287 note 58 Finnis, , “On ‘The Critical Legal Studies Movement’” (1985) 30 Am.J.Juris. 21Google Scholar, 23–24. Reprinted in J. Eekelaar and J. Bell (eds.), Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence (3rd series, 1987).

Dworkin, has presented a different response to the contradiction thesis in Law's Empire (1986), pp. 271–275Google Scholar.

page 288 note 59 Horwitz, M., The Transformation of American Law, 1780–1860 (1977)Google Scholar.

page 289 note 60 Professor Robert Gordon has written that

anyone who thought about it would begin to see a great many problems with crude instrumentalist theory. The capitalists did not seem to win all the time through state policy and law: workers had been granted rights to organize and bargain collectively out of it, blacks had received the abolition of slavery and some affirmative government action promoting their rights, radicals had been granted some rights to teach and write, the poor had received some welfare entitlements, etc.

Gordon, “New Developments in Legal Theory” in Kairys, supra note 2, at p. 285. See also Gordon, supra note 23, at pp. 75–81; White, , “The Inevitability of Critical Legal Studies” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 649, 659Google Scholar; Kennedy, supra note 18, at pp. 24–25.

page 289 note 61 See Russell, , “The Critical Legal Studies Challenge to Contemporary Mainstream Legal Philosophy” (1986) 18 Ottawa L.Rev. 1, pp. 20–22Google Scholar; Greer, “Antonio Gramsci and ‘Legal Hegemony’” in Kairys, supra note 2, at p. 304.

page 289 note 62 See Gordon, supra note 23, at pp. 93–95.

page 290 note 63 Heller, , “Structuralism and Critique” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 127, 132Google Scholar.

page 290 note 64 Delgado, supra note 13, at p. 312.

page 290 note 65 See Kornhauser, , “The Great Image of Authority” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 349, 380–381; Schwartz, supra note 4, at p. 426; Trubek, supra note 40, at p. 612Google Scholar; Hyde, , “The Concept of Legitimation in the Sociology of Law” (1983) Wis.L.Rev. 379Google Scholar.

page 291 note 66 See Hutchinson and Monahan, supra note 20, at p. 233:

To sustain any definite vision of future society, the Critical scholars must renege on their basic commitment to social contingency and historical relativity. CLS is ultimately hoisted on its own petard.

page 292 note 67 See Kelman, supra note 3, at p. 303; Simon, , “Visions of Practice in Legal Thought” (1984) 36 Stan.L.Rev. 469, 502Google Scholar.

page 292 note 68 See Johnson, supra note 14, at pp. 260–261.

page 293 note 69 Singer, supra note 53, at p. 67.

page 293 note 70 Id. at p. 68.

page 293 note 71 (1980) 93 Harv.L.Rev. 1057.

page 293 note 72 Id. at pp. 1068–1073.

page 293 note 73 Id. at p. 1128.

page 294 note 74 Id. at p. 1072.

page 294 note 75 pp. 121–123.

page 294 note 76 Id. at p. 123.

page 295 note 77 Kennedy, , “Distributive and Paternalist Motives in Contract and Tort Law, With Special Reference to Compulsory Terms and Unequal Bargaining Power” (1982) 41 Md.L.Rev. 563, 638–649Google Scholar.

page 295 note 78 Id. at p. 644.

page 295 note 79 Id. at p. 649.

page 296 note 80 Unger, supra note 1, at p. 26.

page 296 note 81 Id. at pp. 30–31.

page 296 note 82 Id. at p. 31.

page 296 note 83 Id. at pp. 31–32.

page 296 note 84 Id. at pp. 33–34. See also Unger, R., Plasticity into Power: Comparative-historical Studies of the Institutional Conditions of Economic and Military Success (1987)Google Scholar.

page 296 note 85 Unger, supra note 1, at p. 35.

page 296 note 86 Id. at p. 36.

page 297 note 87 id.

page 297 note 88 Id. at p. 39.

page 297 note 89 Id.

page 297 note 90 Id

page 297 note 91 Id. at pp. 39–40.

page 297 note 92 Id. at p. 24.

page 297 note 93 His use of the term is not coincidental. See Unger, R., False Necessity: Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy (1987), pp. 241–246Google Scholar (praising Chinese Cultural Revolution). William Ewald has pointed out that Unger's account of the Cultural Revolution singles out for praise some of its most brutal elements, such as Maoist “criticism and self-criticism” sessions, and expresses regret that the Red Guards were eventually reined in. Ewald, , “Unger's Philosophy: A Critical Legal Study” (1988) 97 Yale L.J. 665, pp. 741–748Google Scholar.

page 297 note 94 Unger, supra note 1, at p. 26; Id. at p. 37.

page 297 note 95 See Ewald, supra note 93, at p. 738; Holmes, , “The Professor of Smashing” The New Republic, 19 10 1987, pp. 30Google Scholar, 35–36.

page 298 note 96 Despite periodic rhetorical allusions to anarchism, no CLS author appears to embrace an approach that would entail a substantial reduction in governmental powers. See Hutchinson Monahan, supra note 20, at p. 237.

page 298 note 97 Levinson, , “Escaping Liberalism: Easier Said Than Done” (1983) 96 Harv.L.Rev. 1466Google Scholar.

page 300 note 98 Kennedy, , “Form and Substance in Private Law Adjudication” (1976) 89 Harv.L.Rev. 1685, 1774Google Scholar.

page 300 note 99 Id. at p. 1722.

page 301 note 1 Id.

page 301 note 2 Id. at p. 1773.