Book Report on The Case of the Speluncean Explorers
The Case of the Speluncean Explorers is a classic work of jurisprudence consisting of a hypothetical legal case proposed by the renowned legal scholar Fuller along with the five jurisprudential opinions he wrote, as well as nine additional jurisprudential opinions subsequently proposed by Suber. Through reading this book, I have gained a preliminary understanding of the major schools of legal thought in the modern West.
First of all, what the different justices have in common is that they all take into account the public’s, as well as their own, varying degrees of empathy or sympathy for the survivors in the cave. Therefore, although the first Chief Justice, Truepenny, upon whom Fuller expends the least ink, and the legal textualism he represents emphasize the interpretation of the legal text itself and thus find the defendants guilty, he still thinks of relying on extra-legal executive power to grant them clemency from punishment. Even though “the provision of the statute is well known: ‘Whoever shall willfully take the life of another shall be punished by death’” (p. 18), sympathy and morality grant an exception, and the law takes morality into consideration. This school of legal thought strikes a balance between respect for the law itself and actual social realities—a balance that is more moral in nature than based on abstract reasoning. Perhaps the reason Fuller “appointed” him as the sole Chief Justice is also due to Fuller’s own endorsement of this view to a certain extent, just like the fundamental idea of his own doctrine: law and morality are inseparable, and there exists a middle way between traditional natural law and legal positivism. Truepenny seems to play a role that is both legal positivism, which considers only the law, and one that simultaneously considers morality. Even though requesting the intervention of executive power seems to violate the Western principle of the separation of powers, “it is in effect an instruction to the Chief Executive as to what he should do in this case” (p. 33). The other four justices penned by Fuller also explore the relationship between law and morality. Except for the third justice, who makes no decision, all the other justices distinctly represent the main viewpoints of a particular school of legal thought.
The second justice represents the main viewpoint of the natural law school. He first argues why natural law should be applied, and then argues the result of applying the spirit of natural law in this case. However, this approach of considering only the spirit of the law while ignoring the letter of the law does not seem to conform to the trend where, with historical and social development, the operability of abstract legal principles or spirits in specific affairs gradually decreases; after all, natural law itself can be traced back thousands of years to ancient Greece. The first part of his opinion is more akin to an argument for the basis of the basis of his own judgment. This is very similar to the subsequent justices, who all start from the periphery and gradually approach the core argument, though these procedures do not seem to be distinctly linked to the legal schools they represent. In his natural law viewpoint, law and morality are intertwined. In short, his final view is that, according to the legal spirit of natural law, self-defense is not a crime.
The fourth justice is the only one among Fuller’s five justices to render a guilty verdict—representing legal positivism, which tends to rely entirely on the law itself in judgments and severs the relationship between law and morality. This is completely contrary to China’s theory of the rule of law, as well as to natural law. Legal positivism emphasizes that moral considerations are irrelevant to the application of statutes, holding that the only question before the court is to confirm whether the defendants willfully took the life of another. At the same time, by pointing out that “not one statute in a hundred has any such single purpose, and that the objectives of nearly every statute are differently interpreted by the different classes of its proponents” (p. 36), the justice to a certain extent negates the singularity of legal spirit and legislative purpose pursued by natural law. However, purely pursuing the law itself and severing morality, much like the Legalist thought in ancient China, may not be suitable for the development of today’s society either. Meanwhile, emphasizing legislative supremacy seems likely to lead to excessive harm caused by evil laws.
The fifth justice “judges by common sense” (p. 40), yet relying purely on common sense makes the correctness of the judgment overly dependent on the correctness of common sense, which might lead to insufficient respect for the sanctity of the law. At the same time, if too much deference is given to the fact that among the public, “about ninety percent believe the defendants should be pardoned or released with a token punishment” (p. 43), this might result in too many factors influencing the law, making it difficult for justice to be served under certain circumstances, and in extreme cases, even leading to the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution. Nevertheless, as far as this case is concerned, casting aside cumbersome and obscure legal reasoning and relying on common sense does seem to achieve the wondrous effect of where hills and streams compound and no path seems to lie, dark willows and bright blooms reveal a village nigh. And in this justice’s opinion, law and morality likewise share a very close relationship.
In Suber’s sequel, there are two diametrically opposed viewpoints: Justice Tally’s utilitarian stance and Justice Trumpet’s stance that life is priceless. These two viewpoints can also introduce the famous thought experiment in ethics, the Trolley Problem. Justice Tally likens the actions of the cave survivors to “a profitable ‘bargain’” (p. 88), and uses a limit-based way of thinking to argue that preserving more people is often advantageous. Yet this is obviously difficult for human empathy to easily accept, because in Justice Tally’s argument, a person becomes a means to preserve the lives of companions rather than the life to be preserved—that is, the end itself. Just as Kant taught us, “Man cannot be a means; man can only be an end.” Undeniably, however, such pragmatism can indeed solve problems at times. Justice Trumpet’s view emphasizing the supreme value of life is similarly akin to the legal positivist view of the fourth justice, and both render the same guilty verdict. After all, what the law itself demands is the supremacy of the value of life.
Chief Justice Burnham, penned by Suber, emphasizes legal reasoning and the law itself—“we must discover what the law requires” (p. 55)—which is also similar to the legal positivist view of the fourth justice penned by Fuller. However, if one relies purely on abstract legal reasoning while completely disregarding the facts, one will inevitably arrive at absurd conclusions, such as “they could have eaten their own fingers, toes, earlobes, or drunk their own blood.” Perhaps this is also why U.S. Supreme Court Justice Holmes stated at the beginning of The Common Law: “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.”
Beyond debating whether the survivors are guilty, the justices also consistently debate whether the survivors’ actions constitute self-defense, excessive self-defense, or necessity. At the same time, they debate at considerable length whether the practice of casting lots to decide death is appropriate from the perspectives of procedural fairness, justice, and substance, which perhaps also reflects the Western judicial characteristic of valuing legal reasoning. Meanwhile, similar to Fuller, the final justice penned by Suber also withdraws from the judgment, though not out of indecision, but due to a conflict of interest. After all, if a conflict of interest exists, whether or not one makes a judgment contrary to one’s own interests, it is contrary to justice.
In summary, Fuller ingeniously uses this case of the speluncean explorers to showcase for us the main viewpoints of the several major mainstream Western schools of legal thought prior to the last century, allowing me to discern the grand design from the faintest clue; even if I am merely glimpsing a leopard through a bamboo tube, I have nonetheless benefited immensely.
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