Philosophy of Law Altman
The main point of the rule of law is to promote justice in every aspect it comes across. Posner states, “a rule-of-law ideology would not be a persuasive method of mystification and cooptation were it not occasionally employed against the rich and powerful. But this makes it exceedingly difficult to distinguish…between an evenhanded administration of the law and an administration permeated by class bias, or even to choose between them normatively. ... ” What Posner means is that although the goal of the rule of law is to promote justice, sometimes judges are unable to do so because it is not natural to judge without respect to people. A judge can easily throw in his or her own ideas, values, and biases into their decision making process – even if it is against the rule of law. Only after gaining experience can a judge do their job more objectively so that society can rely on the rule of law to truly promote justice. “Even if the motives for judges’ adherence to rules are sometimes basely political, to the extent the judges do adhere to them law is different from politics. ... It is clear that there will always be a question mark on whether or not someone is being judged by either a person or the law since it is easy to throw in own personal ideas, but if the rule of law is followed correctly it can have a wide range of benefits not only to society but also to the judiciary system as well. With the rule of law in place, vulnerable groups can be protected and even without that benefit, it follows precedent which in turn can create a more peaceful society without public outcries of injustice. ... The strongest argument for the pedigree approach states, “judges just are not smart enough to make wise policy decisions, balancing a myriad of conflicting considerations that include the rule-of-law arguments against balancing.