Subjectivity, Objectivity, Impartiality

Must a judge disconnect her subjective values from her legal judgments? Is that the only way to ensure that the law is being applied rather than the judge’s own vision of justice? This chapter explains that the answer to these questions is “No.” Here is a characteristic expression of the prevailing view that an objective legal judgment requires a judge to suspend his own subjective personal values and perspectives when deciding cases: Objectivity, of course, has many meanings. Here, I mean the intellectual process by which a judge reaches beyond himself to understand, from the perspective of his or her