Tragic Voices

IDEALS, BELIEFS, ATTITUDES AND THE LAW: PRIVATE LAW PERSPECTIVES ON A PUBLIC LAW PROBLEM. By Guido Calabresi The title of this book is perplexing. It is difficult to discern what Guido Calabresi means by "ideals, beliefs and attitudes" or to identify the "public law problem" upon which he means to give perspective. Before I read the book, I thought Calabresi might say that "ideals, beliefs, and attitudes" have no relation to law; perhaps he had taken the radical turn of reducing law to questions of resource allocation.

Or perhaps, I thought, Calabresi finally playing out his substantial instinct for social justice-had turned into a lefty realist. He's going to say that he's given up on rationality for rationality's sake-that ideals, beliefs and attitudes are all that matter in law.