Currently, legal scholars agree that in some cases legal rules do not specify a definite outcome. These scholars believe that such indeterminacy results from the vagueness of language: the boundaries of the application of a term are often unclear. Nevertheless, they maintain that the system of legal rules by and large rests legal philosophers, called “realists,” argued that indeterminacy pervades every part of the law.
The realists held that there is always a cluster of rules relevant to the decision in any litigated case. For example, deciding whether an aunt’s promise to pay her niece a sum of money if she refrained from smoking is enforceable would involve a number of rules regarding such issues as offer, multiple points of indeterminacy, not just one or two, in any legal case.
For the realists, an even more damaging kind of indeterminacy stems from the fact that in a common-law system based on precedent, a judge’s decision is held to be binding on judges in subsequent similar cases. Judicial decisions are expressed in written opinions, commonly held to consist of two parts: the holding which he or she has to choose which rules are to govern the case at hand.
What this question is testing
Your task
Pin down exactly what the question asks about the passage — a detail, the author's view, the structure, or the main point — before looking at the choices.
Common trap
Answers that restate a true detail from the passage but don't answer the specific question being asked.
Winning move
Anticipate the answer in your own words from the passage, then find the choice that matches that prediction.
Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.