Includes bibliographical references and index.

Non-instrumental views of law -- Changing society and common law in the 19th century -- Nineteenth century legislation and legal profession -- Instrumentalism of the legal realists -- 20th century Supreme Court instrumentalism -- Instrumentalism in legal academia in 1970's -- Instrumentalism in theories of law -- Instrumentalism in the legal profession -- Instrumentalism of cause litigation -- Instrumentalism and the judiciary -- Instrumentalism in legislation and administration -- Collapse of higher law, deterioration of common good -- The threat to legality.

The contemporary US legal culture is marked by ubiquitous battles among various groups attempting to seize control of the law and wield it against others in pursuit of their particular agenda. This battle takes place in administrative, legislative, and judicial arenas at both the state and federal levels. This book identifies the underlying source of these battles in the spread of the instrumental view of law - the idea that law is purely a means to an end - in a context of sharp disagreement over the social good. It traces the rise of the instrumental view of law in the course of the past two centuries, then demonstrates the pervasiveness of this view of law and its implications within the contemporary legal culture, and ends by showing the various ways in which seeing law in purely instrumental terms threatens to corrode the rule of law.

English.