Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Cardozo Public Law, Policy, and Ethics Journal

Volume

4

Publication Date

2006

Keywords

Myth of Moral Justice

Abstract

I wrote The Myth ofMoral justice,' primarily, as a moral critique of the legal system. In examining the rituals and practices of the law under moral criteria-its obsessive focus on zero-sum contests, its dedication to cold rules and procedural technicalities over human emotion, its failure to acknowledge the spiritual pain of those who come before it, its inability to create an atmosphere where apologies, reconciliation, and the restoring of moral balance to relationships is possible, its preference for judicial economy over truth, its privileging of secrets and indifference to lies, and its failure to promote an atmosphere of mutual caring and connection by not imposing a duty to rescue-the book is an indictment of the legal system for smugly believing that the correct legal result is necessarily consistent with the right moral outcome.

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