Law
Formalism is a school of thought in law and jurisprudence which assumes that the law is a system of rules that can determine the outcome of any case, without reference to external norms. For example, formalism animates the commonly heard criticism that "judges should apply the law, not make it." To formalism's rival, legal realism, this criticism is incoherent, because legal realism assumes that, at least in difficult cases, all applications of the law will require that a judge refer to external (i.e. non-legal) sources, such as the judge's conception of justice, or commercial norms.
Read more about this topic: Formalism (philosophy)
Famous quotes containing the word law:
“Escalus. What do you think of the trade, Pompey? Is it a lawful trade?
Pompey. If the law would allow it, sir.
Escalus. But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be allowed in Vienna.
Pompey. Does your worship mean to geld and spay all the youth of the city?
Escalus. No, Pompey.
Pompey. Truly, sir, in my poor opinion they will to’t then. If your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you need not to fear the bawds.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The greatest step forward would be to see that everything factual is already theory. The blueness of the sky reveals the basic law of chromatics. Don’t look for anything behind the phenomena, they themselves are the doctrine.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Here, lads, we live by the law of the taiga. But even here people manage to live. D’you know who are the ones the camps finish off? Those who lick other men’s left-overs, those who set store by the doctors, and those who peach on their mates.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)