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没有哪个共同体已经完全实现了“法治”理想。对这一理想的内涵的困惑 ,似乎使得这一理想必然遥不可及 (亦即一个“含糊不清的理想”)。法律体系必定包括一些模糊的法律 ,它们典型地允许着法律中的权变 ,典型地支持着许多无法审查的官方决定 ,并且从来就不会对一个共同体生活的每一方面都加以详尽规范。法治理想似乎永远无法实现 ,正是由法律实践活动的这些特征决定的。在这里 ,我要追问的是 ,究竟是什么造成了法治中的“欠缺”( deficit) ;我将证明 :法律实践活动的这些特征并不一定导致“法治欠缺”的产生。我的结论是 ,共同体之所以不能实现法治 ,仅仅是因为政府对法治信仰的不忠 ,以及立法者没有真心追求法治理想 (或者说 ,他们制定的规则没有追求法治 )。法治并非必然难以实现。
No community has fully realized the ideal of “rule of law.” The perplexity of the ideal’s connotation seems to make this ideal inevitable (that is, an “ambiguous ideal”). The legal system must include vague laws that typically allow for contingency in law, typically support many ungoverned official decisions and never elaborate on every aspect of the life of a community. It seems that the ideal of the rule of law can never be achieved and it is due to these traits of legal practice. What I want to ask here is exactly what caused the “deficit” in the rule of law; I will prove that these characteristics of legal practice do not necessarily lead to “lack of rule of law”. My conclusion is that the community can not achieve the rule of law simply because of the government’s unfaithfulness in the belief in the rule of law and that legislators are not really pursuing the ideal of the rule of law (or, in other words, they are not pursuing the rule of law). The rule of law is not necessarily difficult to achieve.