Groups (Was Re: [lbo-talk] Re: Democracy and Constitutional Rights)

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Mon Aug 16 09:42:45 PDT 2004


On Sun, 15 Aug 2004, andie nachgeborenen wrote:


> Sure, that's why we go to law school, to share a lawyer subculture that
> the rest of you don't. But (although I think we've already covered
> this), that doesn't mean that the rest of you can't criticize lawyers
> and vice versa -- the moral/cognitive relativism problem doesn't arise
> bewteen lawyers./nonlawyers, right? So we still don't knwo what sort of
> groups, if any, might pose the problem I thoughtw e were discussing
> earlier.

No, actually, it's a good example of my point: say a judge overturns a felony conviction for a person who is clearly guilty because of some legal issue (Justin could provide plausible examples better than I could). Many people in our society would rail against lawyers and judges and how they just let criminals loose, etc. --Or consider the goofy attacks against Edwards for being a lawyer; it's immoral of him to help people sue corporations! He's and his greedy ilk are the causing the explosion in health care costs!

So that's a good example of my point: what is considered moral within the lawyerly subculture is notably different than what is considered moral by people who are (willfully or not) ignorant of the subculture.

Miles



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