Law Commons^™

Defending The Rule Of Law In An Era Of Cultural Fragmentation And Cynicism, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

Abandonment of a belief in the objectivity of knowledge, along with the postmodernist assertion that language, truth and power are intertwined has left us with a sense of profound uncertainty. This pervasive doubt extends to virtually all realms, including law. The sense of uncertainty causes us to struggle over the application of indeterminate rules written in indeterminate language applied to indeterminate contexts. At the core of our uncertainty in the context of the perceived integrity of the Rule of Law is that once our most important legal doctrines were disconnected from any belief in divine or natural sources of right …