Why Law Matters by Alon Harel

Alon Harel’s Why Law Matters articulates a powerful and neglected approach for justifying legal institutions. Pushing back against the instrumentalist approach that dominates contemporary legal theory, he argues that legal institutions are not simply tools for realizing extrinsic values, but are themselves constitutive features of a just society. On this view, law is not an instrument for bringing about something that matters; rather, law itself matters and Harel elaborates a series of rich and insightful arguments to explain why. In this brief review, I will sketch the connection between Harel’s non-instrumental methodology and his account of (1) the nature of rights, (2) the distinctiveness of state authority, and (3) the justificatory basis of constitutional governance. I close with some critical comments about the non-instrumental justifications that Harel develops.