Representing and Responding in Legal Judgment: from interpreting the Constitution to Law in the Anthropocene

This article discusses the philosophy of legal judgment that Alessio Lo Giudice has developed in his recent book Il dramma del giudizio. Lo Giudice’s main contribution is a forceful defense of the human nature of legal judgment, something that he links to the notion of a ‘leap’. This article considers what this leap might entail and asks whether it can accommodate the nature of legal judgment. For this purpose, it will juxtapose the figure of Judge Tatting as sketched by Lon Fuller with the work of the Dutch legal theorist Paul Scholten. Finally, the article asks what the reality of anthropogenic climate change might entail for the role of the judge and Lo Giudice’s view on judgment.