Reading Comprehension

PT153 · S4 · P3 · Q18 Judicial Reasoning

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Passage A

Topic

Judicial candor—whether judges need to genuinely believe and honestly state the reasons for their decisions.

Framework

Present Debate

Main Point

Both passages examine whether judges should be required to be sincere and honest (show candor) in the reasons they give for their decisions. Passage A discusses two main approaches to defending judicial candor (prudential and moral), while Passage B argues that there is a strong presumption in favor of judicial candor due to its role in constraining judicial power. Most Valuable Sentences:

Passage A: (end of P3)

Passage B: (end of P3)

P1 (Passage A): Skepticism About Judicial Sincerity

Some legal scholars reject the idea that judges should truly believe what they write in their decisions, arguing that honesty can conflict with the practical demands and responsibilities judges face.

P2 (Passage A): Prudential Defense of Candor

One way to defend sincerity is by showing that it leads to good practical outcomes—like increased transparency or legitimacy—but this is a "means-to-an-end" type of justification.

P3 (Passage A): Moral Defense of Candor

The author argues that relying only on practical benefits ignores the deeper moral reasons for honesty—truth-telling is a core moral duty, not only valuable when it leads to good results.

18.

Each author implies that a lack of judicial candor

violates an unshakable rule of
No Support from Either
Passage B is the only one to use this sort of language (first sentence of final paragraph), but even Passage B would not agree to this. She doesn't see candor as an unshakable rule of judicial behavior. There should be a strong presumption in favor of candor, but she's not so rigid that she thinks we have to be unshakably committed.
18% picked this
provides litigants with insufficient guidance
No Support from B
Passage B never mentions litigants or any potential guidance they get from candidly reasoned precedents.
15% picked this
is an unavoidable product of
No Support from Either
Both authors are largely in favor of judicial candor and are pushing the idea that we should as much of it as we can pragmatically achieve, so neither one of them is going to say "a lack of candor" is unavoidable.
14% picked this
Correct
could conceivably have positive benefits
Why this is right
Tricky, tricky! This is not an answer we anticipated, because this is operating in the "negative space" of each author's argument. The authors are both pushing for as much candor as we can muster, but they do both make concessions that indicate some softness on the idea that candor is always most beneficial. Passage A's 3rd paragraph: In our ordinary moral thinking, duties of truth telling are not justified merely when they produce good outcomes. There, the author is saying, "I think we should try to argue for candor on moral grounds, not prudential grounds. After all, sometimes telling the truth won't have the most prudential (positive) outcomes. But we still want judges to tell the truth even in those cases when being candid might not produce a good outcome." This is acknowledging that in these circumstances, a lack of candor could conceivably have more immediate positive outcomes. Passage B: Do [these points I just made supporting candor] rebut the argument that judicial deception is warranted in cases where it yields some net benefit? Probably not. Here, the author is saying, "Look -- I'm not saying we always have to be candid. I can understand how there might be some situations in which judicial deception (lack of candor) is warranted because it yields some net benefit".
Skill tested: Inference · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
39% picked this
is likely to be detected
No Support from A
Only passage B talked about a lack of candor being detectable.
14% picked this

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