Law in Political Science

"The law, then, is a language that lawyers and judges use when they try to prevent or resolve problems-human conflicts- using official rules made by the state as their starting point" (Carter, 6). "Viewing individual autobiographies over a sweep of time reveals the variety of ways in which rights can become active or remain inactive" (Engel, 13). Reason in Law and Rights, Remembrance and the Reconciliation of Difference both examine the way that law affects daily life. They have a wide range of situations in which they have examined law and to some extent have both reached the same conclusions when it comes to the issue of law being uncertain and ambiguous. Furthermore, they have come to some opposing conclusions because of the groups of people each book or article focuses on. These include the approaches of law and life and officials and receptors.

Law is an interpretation, a creation of strategy. Carter and Burke explain in their book the uncertainty and ambiguity that are associated with law. They explain that words create ambiguity and since the law is made up of words it therefore, is ambiguous. The entire book Reason in Law focuses on very few people; mainly on judges and court opinions. There is a focus on legal reasoning, a process by which judges make justifications for their decisions. Legal reasoning fosters a sense of justice. It helps us to understand how a judge came to a specific decision. Since this is done by the judge in writing it helps us to understand the laws even if we don't agree with them. Another function of legal reasoning is that the information becomes a source of communication in the broader political community. Legal reasoning gives a common ground for people to argue and either come together or apart. Without legal reasoning the people can't tell if a judge is impartial. Legal reasoning helps us to understand the way that a judge interpreted the vagueness of words in constitutional law.

The effects that law has on people outside of the courts is the position that Engel and Munger take in trying to explain where law gets meaning and fits into our daily lives. Rights, Remembrance, and the Reconciliation of Difference focuses on how law is intertwined into our daily lives. Engel and Munger want to know if the law does what it is supposed to do. An emphasis is placed on the life story in order to move away from the analytical center from which we try to see things from. They don't want to explain how something should affect your life but rather they want to examine the direct impacts. Engel and Munger want to learn how receptors react to laws made by judges.

Law is full of uncertain choice and is seldom definitive. This is a common theme in Carter and Burke and Engel and Munger. Carter and Burke describe how judges make decisions when two competing equal values have a problem. Engel and Munger discuss how Sara Lane's life is full of uncertainty. When she tries to establish herself as similar she is emphasizing her differences due to the means that she needs to feel similar. Sara is constantly having to think about what is going to come next. In Sara's life it seems as though there is always a positive side and a negative side. With a judge's decision someone is always going to feel like they have the negative side of the situation. Sara is constantly giving reason for her actions but they aren't in the same legal capacity as a judge. Both sets of authors also see the law in reference to structured improvisation. They both refer to it in the sense that we do what is best for ourselves but that what we have to choose from is structured. For example, Sara Lane improvises a lot of the activities in her life but she is structured by her family and her work life. Carter and Burke and Engel and Munger seem to agree when it comes to uncertainty and structured improvisation but when it comes to law and life and explanations of law they have results.

To begin with, Carter and Burke are constantly looking at the analytical center of law. They seek to explain how the laws that they make should affect our daily lives. Engel and Munger want to study how law really does affect people's daily lives. They do this through the study of life stories. These ideas differ because from the judges point of view it is a top-down theory when they state how the laws that they regulate should affect your life. From Engel and Munger's point of view it is a bottom-up theory that starts with how law affects people's lives and eventually leads back to how the judges make their decisions in the first place. Although both sets of authors agree that the decision making process comes from experience they differ on their opinion of what level of experience the decisions are made from. Engel and Munger make it clear that what the law says is not always what creates the best situation for the person at hand. For example, what the law says that Sara Lane is entitled to is not always what creates a good working environment for her. We see this through the example of her needing a restroom and having to wait a few years for it. Carter and Burke agree that judges makes decisions on an experience related level but those experiences are from other people. What Engel and Munger are studying is the way that people receive these laws and incorporate them into their daily lives. Carter and Burke want to learn how people make laws while Engel and Munger want to see how people react to judges and the legal reasoning that they are trying to incorporate into society.

"The judicial process and legal reasoning therefore play a major part in preserving the confidence that the community can reconcile rules, facts of disputes, social conditions and ethics" (Carter, 129). Carter and Burke describe for us how we get the rules that we do and help us to understand that judges do have to use a method and be impartial. On the other hand, Engel and Munger show us through the experiences of Sara Lane and Jill Golding how law incorporates itself into society, how people do and do not choose to use it and why the impartiality of a judge's decisions are so important to us.

Works Cited

Carter, Lief H., Burke, Thomas F. Reason in Law. Sixth Edition. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 2002.

Engel, David M., Munger, Frank W. Rights, Remembrance, and the Reconciliation of Difference. Law and Society Review , Volume 30, Number 1, 1996.

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