The Uses of Lies

Can a lie make the law more humane? Suehiro Izutarō begins with familiar stories of a celebrated magistrate, then follows legal fictions through Roman law, nominal damages, divorce, official responsibility, and the changing demands of industrial society.

His argument is more demanding than a defense of convenient falsehoods. A rule that never bends may crush the people it should serve, yet a judgment that depends entirely on a wise individual offers no dependable safeguard against arbitrary power. Suehiro asks how law can satisfy the human desire for fairness while responding to the circumstances of each case.

The essay ends with an unusual mathematical image: human beings remain partly unknown, and legal scholarship must study the known elements without pretending the unknown has disappeared. Case law and the case method become tools for finding a standard that changes according to intelligible rules.