Mkhitar Gosh: Legal Pragmatist?
Prepared remarks, T. Samuelian, Interuniversity Conference on Mkhitar Gosh (2008)
Legal Pragmatism has its roots in biblical and classical philosophy that treats law as custom and lawyers not as creators but as discoverers of the internal logic of society. Law is not imposed on society, but grows out of it. This concept has a long and venerable history. There is a Latin maxim for this concept: Leges sine moribus vanae. Loosely translated “laws without mores or morals are vain or empty.” It is not surprising that this is the motto of the university Benjamin Franklin established, America’s first university, the University of Pennsylvania. Benjamin Franklin was a consummate pragmatist, who saw and used knowledge and resources as means to solve the real problems of real people, with many useful inventions from bifocals to stoves to electricity.
A law that is supported by mores or custom is a law that is observed. It is part of the fabric of life. Laws are more than empty imperatives. Laws are not just texts backed by the police force. The Old Testament prophets, Chinese philosophers, Greek philosophers, Jesus and Christian fathers all condemned rules for rules’ sake as ineffective and ultimately unjust. They rejected, what has been formulated in the Far East, as “rule by law” in favor of “rule of law.”
Confucius wrote (Analects 2:3) in the 6th cent. BCE during the tumultuous Warring States period, that enforcement, deterrence and punishment do not foster a peaceful, healthy, law-abiding state, for when people comply with the law solely to avoid punishment, goal substitution takes place – people use their ingenuity to find other less costly ways to avoid punishment – quibbling and misinterpreting the law, conniving with the legislator or judge. The result is an unruly, unjust society. Only when people internalize the rules of virtue (de) and propriety (li) does the state become a healthy community where people follow rules voluntarily, as second nature, learned through proper upbringing, education, self-cultivation and self-discipline, an orderly environment, and a fair society. The citizen is cultivated and formed in the family, city, society, nation and world through the respectful, fair, properly ordered interactions of each with all. It is like a complex, sometimes ritualized, often improvised dance, since laws are never complete, but the improvision and free expression are based on a deep understanding and commitment to the ethos, style, and motions of the dance, with a keen awareness of the other dancers, not to step on each other’s toes, not to do put each other off balance or disrupt each other’s moves and self-expression.
To create this kind of environment, the laws as well as their enforcement must serve the common good. Laws and enacted or enforced for other ulterior purposes is a blight on the society. Laws not observed or observable, empty rituals so to speak, are a superfluous law. They are clutter in the body politic; hypocrisy in human relations. They are more like cobwebs than a legal system: catching the unsuspecting, rather than promoting justice or the common welfare.
Laws that grow out of mores are like the grammar of a language. We all absorb and mostly unconsciously observe grammatical rules. On occasion we can articulate and adjust them, but no one can claim to have created them. Some people, linguists and lawyers, try to describe and tinker with those internalized systems. However, the wisest of them understand that the system has a life of its own. It is a memetic system, and like any memetic system, it lives in and on a community of human beings.
The internalized grammar of a community of native speakers has no extraneous rules. Similarly, the legal system should have no extraneous rules, rules for rules’ sake, rules that are not observed. This concept of legal economy was further developed in the enlightenment and the 19th and 20th century in various forms. Whether it is Occam’s razor in philosophy or Thomas Jefferson’s dictum that “that government is best which governs least,” efficiency or economy of concepts and law is highly valued. This principle has found expression in US Supreme Court jurisprudence and in the International Covenants of Civil and Political Rights and Economic Social and Cultural Rights. It is the international norm of “regulatory proportionality.” Law should not burden individual rights or liberties any more than necessary to achieve an important, legitimate, societal good. Or to use Mill’s formula: “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” (Ch. 1, ln. 342)
Thus, we owe deference to mores and individual freedom. This deference is grounded in our cognizance of the limitations of human reason and virtue. Once again as Mill noted, “for the majority of the eminent men of every past generation held many opinions now known to be erroneous, and did or approved numerous things which no one will now justify.” Mill, On Liberty, Ch. 2, ln. 142. Respect for others and humility are essential counterbalancing virtues and restraints, for “few think it necessary to take any precautions against their own fallibility.” Mill, On Liberty, Ch.2, ln. 64
This deference urges respect for individual liberty and avoidance of “overregulation.” In personal life, this virtue is often expressed as “minding our own business”, “not sticking our nose in others’ business,” and “not being a busy body.” We live in an age that has turned the ethos of busybodies into the essence of government, law and regulation. Many people want to tell other people how to live, but few practice what they preach. However, as Mill points out, “– Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.” Mill, On Liberty, Ch. 1 ln. 471. This is very similar to the world in the first-century, when Jesus pointed out to a pharisaical society, “Judge not, that ye not be judged.”
This prudent and limited concept of law found expression in the writings of many American jurists, none more eloquent or influential than Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. In perhaps the most famous sentence of American law, Holmes wrote: “Life of the law is experience, not logic.” He viewed law as an activity, not a theoretical construct. For Holmes, law was “nothing more pretentious than what a judge will do in a particular case.”
This approach to law is instrumental, predictive, efficient, and experiential. More recently, leading lawyers and judges in the US have further developed and embraced this approach to law. They see it as an antidote to the bureaucratized and paternalistic states that dominated the 20th century. For as Mill pointed out, “Where everything is done through the bureaucracy, nothing to which the bureaucracy is really adverse can be done at all.” Ch. 5, ln. 790
Especially in Europe, communist countries, but also in the United States, the heavily regulated and administered state substitutes the interests of the bureaucracy and elites for the public welfare. When law is viewed simply as anything that state officials choose to enforce in whatever way they choose to enforce it, it stops being law. It is no longer predictive, efficient, fair or based on experience, since it is subject to the whim of individuals. Thus, as I have noted on other occasions, the inscription above the main law school building at Harvard, the Langdell Library, reads Non sub homine, sed sub Deo et Lege. “Not under men, but under God and law.” Human liberty requires that laws be predictable, efficient, fair and experiential. Otherwise, the liberty of people living in such systems is reduced without any proportional benefit to the common welfare. This is the essence of legal efficiency or utility. It is another pragmatic measure of law that has roots in the political, economic and legal thought of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, but has been absorbed into US and international jurisprudence. If people don’t know or can’t predict what the law is, it is impossible to conform to it. Hence, law-abiding behavior is rendered epistemologically impossible, and equality before the law plagued by favoritism and arbitrariness. The only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty, since by it there are as many possible independent centers of improvement as there are individuals. Mill, Ch. 3 ln 603 p. 60. The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it. Mill, Ch. 5. ln. 910.
Armenia is recovering from a period of ideology driven, bureaucratic rule, which was preceded by a long period of the rule of foreign caprice – the rule of men, not law or God. For this reason, it is particularly interesting to look to the time of Gosh, in the 13th century. To look and imagine how things might (some would say should) have developed, but for the calamitous period from the 13th through the 20th centuries, during which Armenian civilization was deformed by invaders, oppressors and failed ideologies.
Mkhitar Gosh’s Book of Judgments (Դատաստանագիրք) expresses a view of law that is remarkably pragmatic in the sense defined above. His approach is “prudent” in the classical sense. He is deeply aware of the consequences of the law-compiler’s actions and focused on trying to achieve a good result with the least harm. The following are seven key characteristics of his pragmatic approach to the law:
- Written law is imperfect; therefore, calls for a contextual, not formalistic treatment.
- Law is based on experience – International Best Practices, Precedent
- Law is not ideological/pure reason or a mental construct. His view is anti-foundational – non-deductive, non-speculative – not paternalistic. Real people are not sacrificed to the half-baked, mental whims of the powers that be.
- Law grows gradually – it is discovered and evolves to meet new needs
- Law and legal practitioners are fallible – for which reason we must constantly strive to improve the law to temper it with mercy.
- Law is collective wisdom
- Law must be applied responsibly and tempered by fairness. Judges and those who wield power should be vigilant and restrained.
- Written law is imperfect; therefore, contextual, not formalistic
Written law imperfect. իսկ գրելն այժմ պատճառս ունի զամեսանի վրիպանսն. but the writing down of it now is the cause the errors of everyone. Ch. 2, p. 3, ln. 20.
Contextual – not formalistic – “Christ did not wish to hand down a written code, like the imperfect” ոչ կամեցաւ զաւրէն անկատարից գրով աւանդել դատաստան (intro Ch. 1, p. 2, ln. 3, seek justice in a particular case.
Cultural Perspectivism it is always necessary to change according to nation and countries, leaving it to the experts to test according to the circumstances. միշտ ըստ ազգի եւ աշխարհաց փոփոխին հարկաւորաբար` իրաւացոյց թողուլ հմտագունից փորձել ըստ պատահմանն: Ch. 1, p. 2, ln. 24-25.
because expertise had diminished from among us to test according to time and nation and country the variation of the law according to the circumstances. զի նուազեաց հմտութիւն ի մէնջ փորձել ըստ ժամանակի, եւ ազգի, եւ աշխարհաց զփոփոխելն ըստ պատահման. Ch. 2, p. 3, ln. 10.
- Law is based on experience – International Best Practices, Precedent
International Best Practices. we must collect from all nations which believe in the Lord, as from relatives, what we have heard and seen. That is, from all nations we must bring together whatever may be appropriate for our own needs. (IBP). յամենայն ազգաց հաւատացելոց ի Տէր, իրբ ի հարազատաց, պարտիմք հաւաքել, զոր լուաք եւ տեսաք: Այդոքիկ` յազգաց, զի զոր ինչ անկ մերոց պիտոյիցս իցէ, յամենեցունց հաւաքելի է: Ch. 10, p. 23, ln. 10.
Precedent – many details we set down from its statutes of past events, and from scrutiny by investigation and report of reliable laws according to each one’s nation. We often drew upon the scriptures to fill in gaps, relying upon their authority, and in many instances drew upon actual cases, and based on research and reports of reliable laws from different countries. Արդ, զայսոսիկ զտեղի լնումք գրոց վկայութեամբ, զորս ի զաւրութենէ նոցա առնումք, եւ զբազումս` յեղելոց իրաց դատաստանաց իսկ նոցունց, եւ ի տեսութենէ եւ ի լրոյ քննութեանց հաւաստի իրաւանց` ըստ իւրաքանչիւր ազգաց: Ch. 10, p. 24, l. 15-17
- Law is not ideological/pure reason or mental constructions – Anti-Foundational – non-deductive, non-speculative – not paternalistic – non-ideological – real people are not sacrificed to the mental whims of the powers that be
Anti-Foundational – non-deductive – “preserve righteousness and justice through love and sympathy according to the various times by unwritten laws.” (Ch. 1, p. 2 ln. 18-19) կամեցաւ զի մի՛ հարկաւորաբար յիրաւունս կայցեմք ընդ միմեանս գրով դատաստանի, այլ սիրով եւ վշտակցութեամբ, ըստ զանազան ժամանակի անգիր աւրինաւք, զարդարադատութիւն պահիցեմք: open-ended concepts in need of continual testing and revision խղճմտանք
non-speculative – ի կանոնական հրամանաց, զի եւ անդ գտանի ոչ միայն զաւրութեամբ ընտրել դատաստան, այլ եւ յատուկ լինել բան դատաստանի: also draw on canon law, for there are laws that are not just speculative, but tailor to specific cases. Ch. 10, p. 23, ln. 17-8.
- Law grows gradually – it is discovered and evolves to meet new needs
Gradualism. But it is known that the contents of the law code were not assembled at once. As noted in connection with the canons above, the canons were not promulgated all together, all at one time, by one person, but were gradually assembled, at different times, and from different sources. բայց գիտելի է, զի ոչ միանգամայն պարունակեալ այժմ բաւանդակ գիրս դատաստանի, զի կանոնական ունի զաւրութիւն, որպէս ասացեալ է յառաջագոյն: Զի զոր աւրինակ ոչ միանգամ եդաւ կանոնք, եւ ոչ ի միում ժամանակի, եւ ոշ ի միոջէ, այլ առ սակաւ, սակաւ, եւ ի բազում ժամանակս, եւ ի բազմաց: ch. 10, p. 23, ln. 25-30.
- Law and legal practitioners are fallible – for this reason we must constantly strive to improve the law, temper it with mercy.
Fallibility. for our nature is susceptible to forgetfulness of the good, due to various ills of body and soul, and at the time of rendering judgment, though we wish to judge justly, we often err. զի արարածական բնութիւնս միշտ ի մոռացման է բարւոյն ըստ զանազան ախտից հոգւոյ եւ մարմնոյ, եւ ի ժամանակ դատաստանին թէպէտ եւ ուղիղ կամիցիմք վճռել, բազում անգամ մոռացմանէ սխալիմք . ..
Temper with mercy (because we are fallible) make prompt judgment through a true decision. Although in everything he should recall mercy, yet he should be careful in judgment, to keep even and equitable the right for both sides. եւ զդատաստանն յորդորեսցէ ճշմարիտ վճռաւ: Եւ թէպէտ յամենայնի զողորմութիւն յիշելի է, այլ սակայն ի դատի զգուշանալի, հարթ ու արդակ պահել զիրաւացին առ երկաքանչիւր կողմանս: Ch. 6, p. 9, n. 20-23.
- Law is collective wisdom
Collective wisdom – public welfare. if we reckoned that two or three judges should concur in passing judgment, how much more appropriate here for many to concur in judging the legal details and then to set them down in writing. Զի թէ դատաւորաց երկուց եւ երից ի միասին լինել ի դատելն իրաւունս համարեցաք, որչա՞փ եւ աստ ի դէպ էր լինել բազմաց ի միասին դատել զիրաւացին իրս եւ ապա գրով դրովշմել: Ch. 10, p. 24, l. 12-15
Collective wisdom– “not a task for a single person, but sharing in the tasks, they bring the artifact into realty according to the simile of weavers.” զի եւ ոչ գործ ամենայն եւ արուեստ ի միոջէ սկսողէ աւարտեալ կատարեցաւ ի սկզբանէ, այլ ի բազմաց, զի մասնաւոր գտեալքն ժողովեալ գոյացուցին զարուեստն. ըստ առակի ոստայնանկաց: Ch. 2, p. 5, ln. 22-24.
- Responsibility and equity. Judges and those who wield power should be vigilant and restrained.
Constant Improvement. Ապա եթէ սիրով մերոցս պատահիք բանից եւ խնամիչ կամաւք զթերին լնուսջիք, ի Տեառնէ զհատուցումնն առջիք բարեաց եւ զգանձս ձերովք երկամբք յեկեղեցիս ամբարեսջիք` յիշատակ բարեաց մնալ մեզ ի նմա: Ch. 11, p. 24, l. 40-42. So, if you treat my work kindly and work to improve it, the Lord will compensate you for your good deeds and you will earn treasure in the church and your good deeds toward us will be remembered.
In practice Fairness. equality before the law – Ch. 2, p. 3, ln. 1 ոչ կամել զուգահաւասար կենցաղավարել մարդկան ազգի
Responsibility – temporal authority is accountable before divine authority. law as standard for judges and judges – so that judges might always be vigilant, knowing that they are to stand before the heavenly judge, acting with unerring knowledge with the written code as a model. զի դատաւորք միշտ երկիցեն, գիտելով, զի դատաւորին առաջի կալոց են երկնաւորի, անվրէպ գիտութեամբ աւրինակաւ, գրութեամբ դատաստանի: Ch. 2, p. 3, l. 10-11
So, it is very necessary for judges to have expertise in these things – in deep study, and intelligence, and knowledge of divine and human matters – in order that he may conduct the court of justice without errors and likewise in eloquence and good sense – lest inevitably he makes mistakes. Եւ արդ, այսոքիկ յոյժ պէտք են հմտութեան դատաւորաց` քաջուսումնութեան, եւ հանճարոյ, եւ տեղեկութեան աստուածայնոց եւ մարդկայնոց իրողութեանց լինելոյ, որպէս զի անսխալ զատեանն հատուսցէ դատաստանի, նաեւ` առոգութեան եւ քաջ զգայութեան, զի մի՛ հարկաւորաբար սխալանս ինչ գործիցէ: Ch. 5, p. 8, ln. 25-30.
That the judged might in like manner be vigilant, for although they may plead falsely before men, they will be answerable before God who sees the depths of the soul, before whom there is no justification by deceit. զի դատեալքն նմանապէս զարհուրեսցին, զի թէ զստութիւն արդարացուցանել առաջի մարդկան ոչ կարեն, թէպէտ եւ բազում անգամ պատրեն զդատաւորս, զի՞նչ անդ գործեսցեն, որ զխորս տեսանէ, որում առաջի պատրանաւք արդարանալ ոչ է: Ch. 2, p. 4, ln. 17-18.
As Judge Richard Posner, 7th Circuit US Court of Appeals, in his Problems of Jurisprudence (1990), defined legal pragmatism:
Legal Pragmatism. . . means looking at problems concretely, experimentally, without illusions, with full awareness of the limitations of human reason, with a sense of the “localness” of human knowledge, the difficulty of translations between cultures, the unattainability of “truth,” the consequent importance of keeping diverse paths of inquiry open, the dependence of inquiry on culture and social institutions, and above all the insistence that social thought and action be evaluated as instruments to valued human goals rather than as ends in themselves. These dispositions, which are more characteristic of scientists than of lawyers (an in an important sense pragmatism is the ethics of scientific inquiry), have no political valence. They can, I believe, point the way to a clearer understanding of law.
Of course, law, lawyers, and judges do not have the luxury of engaging in pure sciences. Ours is a prudent, applied discipline. Quoting Posner again, legal pragmatists wish to “shift attention from a passive, contemplative relationship between an observing subject and an objective reality, whether natural or social, to an active, creative relationship between striving human beings and the problems that beset them and that they seek to overcome.”
This is what Gosh tried to do in his day, and what we still strive to do in ours. As pointed out in this lecture, Gosh charted out a path, from which our nation deviated under foreign rule, oppression, and misguided ideologies. While it is never possible to turn back the clock, it is never too late to recognize the forks in the road and to consider the “road not taken.” If we determine that that road leads to a better destination, it is not too late to consider how we might find our way to that destination. It’s is better to back track and note where we went wrong than to persist and end up somewhere, we do not wish to be.
