Edmond Nathaniel Cahn

Background

Edmond Nathaniel Cahn was born on January 17, 1906 in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States; the son of Edgar Mayer Cahn, a lawyer, and Minnie Sarah Cohen.

Education

After attending public schools in New Orleans, he enrolled at Tulane University, from which he received the B. A. in 1925, and the J. D. degree in 1927, ranking first in his class.

Career

In part because of his distaste for racial segregation, after graduation Cahn practiced law in New York City. Specializing in trusts and estates, and later in taxation, he practiced there until 1950, when he became a full-time member of the faculty of the New York University School of Law.

As a legal philosopher Cahn dealt mainly with the ethical and moral insights that law encompasses. His basic thoughts were conceptual statements of the elements of Jewish belief. His first book, The Sense of Injustice (1949), which propelled him to public attention, can be regarded as a philosophical treatment of the Hebrew prophets' war on individual and social injustice.

After the publication of The Sense of Injustice, the American Law Institute asked Cahn to prepare a survey of morals as revealed in court opinions. When he submitted the first section of his report, the institute criticized it as "controversial. " Because he wanted "perfect freedom of expression" and feared being a "kept scholar, " Cahn decided to go ahead with the study at his own expense. The result was The Moral Decision (1955). The Hebraic and Hellenic ideal that the law should serve as "a lamp unto the feet and a light unto the path" inspired him. Seeking guides for daily behavior and private moral judgments, Cahn critically evaluated the moral precepts found in society in the light of American law and illustrated the extent to which judges, in deciding cases, actually reflect those precepts. Writing the section on death while he was ill with tuberculosis, and with his survival in doubt, Cahn employed the lawyer's technique of working from concrete cases. In extracting moral issues from reported decisions, he showed, in opposition to the traditional philosophical method, how the particular can illuminate the general.

Cahn next wrote The Predicament of Democratic Man (1961), which develops the biblical insight that a people is accountable for the moral quality of its law. His thesis revolved around the political-ethical quandary whether it is possible to live under a democratic government without becoming morally contaminated. He confronted this issue by explaining the nature and background of our moral involvement in governmental wrongs and by providing the criteria for determining individual and collective guilt.

Cahn viewed his task as furnishing the theoretical underpinnings of a philosophy of action to provide a more just society. Despite his aversion to joining groups whose positions might threaten his intellectual independence, he was no closet philosopher. As a member of the board of the Union for Democratic Action, the predecessor of the Americans for Democratic Action, he was "the only one who, " according to its secretary, Joseph P. Lash, "made an intellectual contribution. "

Later he was active in the New York League to Abolish Capital Punishment. Many judges at all levels were among his friends, and he was in the forefront of those who lauded the efforts of the Supreme Court in extending protection of individual rights. At times he felt the Court did not go far enough in enforcing constitutional guarantees. His philosophical skepticism did not prevent Cahn from advocating an "absolute" concept of the First Amendment. The Bill of Rights, he told his students, is "our most solemnly declared public policy. " It is "our way, with it we stand or fail. "

His Reform Judaism infused his inspirational writings; the moral ideal permeated his thoughts and actions. He strove to demonstrate the relevance of legal and moral theory to contemporary concerns.

He also edited and contributed to The Great Rights (1963), a collection of speeches about the primary safeguards of American freedom delivered at his urging by Supreme Court Justices Hugo L. Black (whose mutuality of views with Cahn's led to a warm and enduring intellectual and personal bond), William J. Brennan, Jr. , William O. Douglas, and Chief Justice Earl Warren. After Cahn's death in New York City, Justice Black wrote that Cahn's writings "will live for a long time to give hope and courage to many people who want to see this troubled world one in which a sense of justice is a more widespread and abiding faith. "

Achievements

• Cahn was the first guest lecturer in philosophy of law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 1955 the American Philosophical Society awarded Cahn its Phillips Prize in Jurisprudence, which had been bestowed only eight times since its inception in 1888.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Moral Decision: Right and Wrong in the Light of American Law

    ( Originally published in 1955, The Moral Decision remain...)

  • Supreme Court and Supreme Law:

    (Fascinating volume in which five leading scholars analyze...)

  • The sense of injustice

    (The sense of injustice Jan 01, 1975 Cahn, Edmond Nathaniel)

  • The Predicament of Democratic Man by Edmond Nathaniel Cahn (1979-01-19)

Views

Cahn challenged the prevailing legal formalism with a frankly anthropocentric system of juridical theory: Law exists to serve the citizens, to minister to their everyday needs; it is in this sense a malleable tool to be molded as they see fit. According to Cahn, justice consists not in natural-law principles nor in the acceptance of legalized power, but in "the active process of remedying or preventing what would arouse the sense of injustice. " The sense of injustice is an "indissociable blend of reason and empathy" and in many demonstrable ways is "a real causal factor in the daily operation of law. "

Since moral values exist both inside and outside the law, "the only practical difference between them is in the respective methods by which they are enforced. " He scrupulously respected the line between morals and ethics. Morals are a species of the generic term "ethics" and are concerned with the relative contextual correctness of specific judgments. Cahn found the basis for moral decisions in a dynamic human nature achieving active adjustment in a complex and fluid community.

The citizen, he felt, must accept individual responsibility for the transgressions of the government. Cahn rejected such traditional philosophical queries as whether life has any meaning because they leave the ethical individual in a state of passive contemplation. The central ethical question to him was how we can infuse meaning into life by the ways in which we behave toward ourselves and others. Throughout the corpus of Cahn's writing fact-skepticism is especially prominent. As developed by Jerome Frank, this approach aims to rid the judicial process of the cloak of certainty and to expose its realities by the continual questioning of factual assumptions. This method emphasizes the difficulty of re-creating the past or predicting the future and stresses the importance of the personal element in choice and decision. It is "vitalistic, pluralistic, and above all, personalistic. " Cahn expanded upon Frank's approach, applying it in divers areas. The "insight of irreversibility" helped him to believe that the death penalty should be abolished. Among all forms of punishment, "it alone is irreversible" and "completely irremediable. " A mistake-laden legal system imposes a final result on the basis of necessarily incomplete facts about the past and without knowing what relevant data will turn up in the future. Likewise, overreliance on the findings of disputing experts in other disciplines can lead judges to abdicate their responsibility in the search for justice. Cahn skirted nominalism. His focus on the person on trial left him open to charges that he cared more about the fate of the individual than about the legal principles involved. Law, said Cahn, must be viewed from the vantage point of those who use it; he labeled this idea the "consumer perspective. " He evolved the theory of "graded pragmatism, " in which limits are imposed on physical and psychological experiments on human beings to verify scientific hypotheses. Assaults on the inviolability of the human personality he regarded as ethically pernicious; the individual must possess the freedom to refine his principles progressively through constant usage. Actions must be judged in light of their consequences on those affected.

Membership

He was a member of the board of the Union for Democratic Action. Shortly before his death he was elected to the national board of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Personality

Cahn was a tall, courtly man whose subtle mind, intensity, and passionate spirit often hid a ready wit. He was an easy conversationalist and accomplished public speaker, and made an especial effort to befriend judges in hope of influencing their thoughts.

Connections

On March 18, 1930, he married Lenore Lebach; they had two children.

Father:

Edgar Mayer Cahn

Lawyer

Mother:

Minnie Sarah Cohen

Wife:

Lenore Lebach

References

• Nine Modern Moralists (Classic Reprint)