Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Georgia State University Law Review
Abstract
"Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies?" The philosophy of law has long been dominated by a disagreement between those who say, with St. Augustine, "that an unjust law is no law at all," and those who respond, with John Austin, that "[t]he existence of law is one thing; its merit or demerit is another." Against the latter camp - that is, against those who insist on a comprehensive separability of law and morality and, accordingly, on the contingency of any connection between positive law and justice-Philip Selznick, an eminent sociologist of law and a former colleague of mine at Berkeley, has offered the following admonition, which I would like to explore in this Article: 'It is important to preserve the distinction between law as an operative system and justice as a moral ideal. But clear distinctions are compatible with-indeed they are important preconditions of-theories that trace connections and reveal dynamics. Law is not necessarily just, but it does promise justice. We must look to the theory of law and justice to understand why that promise exists and under what conditions it may be fulfilled or abridged.'
First Page
759
Volume
17
Publication Date
2001
Recommended Citation
Jeremy Waldron,
Does Law Promise Justice?,
17
Georgia State University Law Review
759
(2001).
Available at:
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-articles/1155
