First Page
101
Last Page
114
Document Type
Essay
Abstract
In a recent speech, later published as an essay, the Hon. Benjamin Beaton of the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky shared his critical suggestions against the use of the honorific “Your Honor,” preferring instead the more neutral title “judge.” Judge Beaton’s reason for this preference stems from a fear that the current practice of judicial titles emphasizes status over function, which may inflate the individual judge’s ego while miscommunicating to the public that judges make, rather than find, law. This position, however, is misguided. Judicial titles emphasize the authority of the law through the authority of the judge. This Essay suggests that the law’s rhetoric is not merely a project of reason, but of aesthetics. That is to say: whether we are persuaded that a determination has the quality of law is not only made by our rational decision-making, but also by the aesthetics of the decision-making process. Titles, like other forms of what Confucius called li and what John Adams described as “signs,” communicate the roles tied to the legal process while also evoking the qualities necessary for the role in order for the passion for recognition to be exercised and, hopefully, satisfied by the exercise of the public office for the public benefit. The point of titles, then, is to persuade all the participants in the legal process of the authority of the law and that the legal drama––the legal “play”––is, indeed, the thing.
Recommended Citation
Aaron J. Walayat
The Play’s the Thing: A Response to Judge Benjamin Beaton,
2023 Pepp. L. Rev.
101
(2023)
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/plr/vol2023/iss1/6
