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Vanderbilt Law Review

First Page

309

Abstract

This Article has analyzed and critiqued the myth of law as rules and contrasted it with a view of law as a process of responsible decision making. The operational code of this process requires that the lawyer recognize his role as decision maker and the necessary ramifications of personal choice and responsibility inherent in that role. Yet the individual who resists embracing the code, and who seeks instead the holy grail, may only be clamoring for fulfillment of the myth system. If his commitment to the significance of the myth does not impede his education as decision maker or his willingness to accept responsibility for the impact of the decision she makes, a continuing appreciation of the myth may create in him a healthy unease. The unease may cause him to question the justification of an elite making decisions affecting others, as well as his own qualifications to participate within such an elite. He also may question the wisdom, justice, authority, and necessity of the specific decisional output of such an elite--"the law." Consequently, while most lawyers will experience moments of happiness due to their professional ability, those who become content with the state of "the law" may no longer be aware of the impact of what they are doing. When the lawyer becomes content,he has consciously rejected, or is inherently incapable of recognizing, the personal responsibility necessary to justify ethically the operational code, and the essence of striving inherent in the myth system-the morality play-has been lost upon him.

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