Roscoe Pound Part II

1
Roscoe Pound (Part II)

• The Possibility of a Measure of Values

2
The Possibility of a Measure of Values

• The purpose of a civilized society is the
  distribution of limited resources amongst all
  persons in society as far as possible with the
  least friction and waste.
• Without regard to philosophy, problems presented
  to jurists for resolution are practical problems
  presented in a practical way, and at every step
  in finding a practical solution we encounter the
  problem of values.
• Since Jhering distinguished the legal system from
  the legal claim, we have had to deal with which
  individual and community interests should be
  recognized and secured.
• Each of these claims may have to be looked at
  from several different points of view.
• Individual Interests
• Economic
• Physical and spiritual existence

3
The Possibility of a Measure of Values (cont.)

• Societal Interests
• The dignity of the political organization of
  society
• General security
• Public safety
• General health
• Security of acquisitions, and
• Security of transactions.
• Every claim must be weighed against every other
  interest, and this results in a constant struggle
  to obtain a higher valuing of particular claims
  or demands.
• These competing claims have created many of the
  standing puzzles of the law.
• The ideas of jurisprudence have given us a
  starting point for legal reasoning, a criterion
  of interpretation, and a measure of the
  application of standards so that practical
  solutions can be derived to practical competing
  interests.

4
The Possibility of a Measure of Values (cont.)

• What are the alternatives to a jurisprudence of
  values where competing interests are adjusted to
  secure as much as possible of the differing
  interests with the least friction and waste?
• A regime of free contractual rights and duties
  a philosophy of anarchy
• Marxs doctrine of disappearance of law a
  regime of administrative absolutism
• A corporative state in which the unit is no
  longer the individual but the occupational group
  a regime which led to the development of law.
• Although law is not the only agency of social
  control, the legal system bears the brunt of this
  task.

5
The Possibility of a Measure of Values (cont.)

• We may concede that there are no absolute values,
  that value is relative to something, and perhaps
  the value of jurisprudence is relative to the
  civilization which develops it.
• The law today relies more on the application of
  standards than authoritative statements of rules.
• Legal philosophy may not be able to give us an
  ability to measure values, but it can provide a
  method for critically analyzing traditional
  ideals of the law.
• What we need is not a reversion to justice
  without law (a further development of absolutism)
  but a redrawing of the authoritative picture of
  the society in which justice is administered.