Passage Discussion

[andrewgong01]

I am a bit uncertain over where Passage A stands on the issue of judicial candor and was wondering how A should be interpreted

Passage A: Starts out with the opposing side's view and then in P2 it says that there are two ways of defending sincerity. However, the author never gives his/her personal view on if sincerity is needed; instead he/she is just giving us one line of reasoning to support sincerity. P3 of the passage the author seems to disagree with P2's reason (prudential reasons - what ever that means...?) but the author offers another reason to support juicial candor: normative moral forces



Passage B's stance: I think first two paragraphs of it really give you the impression that the author is in favor of candor. However, Line 54 proves key for many of the question because the "probably not" highlights the author is not extreme and in 100% support of candor.

I had trouble seeing the disagreement as it just does not seem like A has a stance but B does; however, Q20 implies there is a disagreement somewhere

[ohthatpatrick]

This will be redundant with what's posted in Q16 and Q20, but for people who only visit this thread:

both passages address the question of, "Should judges be candid in their reasoning?"

Psg A - Yes (lines 21-24), "judges should not lie or deliberately mislead in their opinions", and we should justify the principle of judicial candor on moral, not pragmatic, reasons.

Psg B - Usually yes (last line), "there should be a strong presumption in favor of candor." If we lost candor, we'd be less able to constrain judges / to criticize them / to condemn them ... and public cynicism would increase.

Psg B leaves some daylight, though, for exceptions. After making her 2nd paragraph's case in favor of candor, she says in her 3rd paragraph "Have I just demonstrated an UNSHAKABLE obligation? Probably not."

She implies that "judicial deception MAY sometimes be warranted in cases where it yields some net benefit".

tl;dr version
Psg A - judicial candor is always required (for moral reasons), regardless of whether it leads to good outcomes

Psg B - we should heavily lean towards judicial candor, since not having it would lead to bad outcomes, but it's possible there are times where we would make an exception and allow judicial deception if it produced an important net gain.