van Domselaar on The Perceptive Judge

Iris van Domselaar, University of Amsterdam, has published The Perceptive Judge. Here is the abstract.

Up until today the way judges perceive has received little attention in legal discourse. Adjudication is most often conceptualized as a practice in which judges apply rules and principles. The focus has predominantly been on the actual decisions judges take, the underlying justificatory rules and principles and the meaning of the decision for the legal system. This paper by contrast puts judicial perception at the centre of adjudication. It offers a philosophical account of judicial perception that understands it as a special ethical, character dependent - skill that a judge needs in order to adequately cope with the case he is confronted with. In this account ‘thick (legal) concepts’ play a vital role. Throughout the text Ian McEwan’s novel The Children Act is used as illustrative source.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.