Tamanaha on Legal Instrumentalism

One recurrent theme of our conversations on MoJ has been the extent to which the law can and should be viewed as simply a means to accomplishing noble ends.  This theme is at the center of an important new book by my friend and former colleague Brian Tamanaha, Law as a Means to an End.  The book "traces the rise of the instrumental view of law in the course of the past two centuries, then demonstrates the pervasiveness of this view of law and its implications within the contemporary legal culture, and ends by showing the various ways in which seeing law in purely instrumental terms threatens to corrode the rule of law."  Larry Solum writes that "[t]his is not just an important book--it is THE important book of legal theory for this decade."

Rob