Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.-Jurist and his particular relevance in the world of Jurispudence - Essay Example

His biggest achievement associated with justices was the elimination of the legal and official reasoning, which were actually supported by the philosophy of natural law and natural right (Watson). Historical Context Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. originally came from Boston and was a student of Harvard College. During his academic life, he participated in the Civil War of 1857, which had a great impact on his life and perceptions of the law and ultimately leaded him to join the Massachusetts Bar in 1867 after graduating from the Harvard Law School.

He served in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts till 1902, after which he joined the Theodore Roosevelt Supreme Court, where he remained held the position for about twenty-nine years. In addition to being associated with the judicatory, he was also a successful and renowned writer. Wendell and Jurisprudence Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. had the following basic visions and outlooks about the Jurisprudence (Watson): He convinced people that Law is basically sustained by the experience rather than logic as experience makes its life longer whereas logic at times is left behind.

Apparently, he was the supporter of judicial control when the conventional judicial advocacy was targeted and condemned by the system of liberal activities. He induced the thought of realism in to the Court by introducing the concept of forecasting. He compelled people and lawyers to see law from other dimensions, that is, of the dreadful man and how he was convinced to break the law. He also proposed his arguments pertaining to positivism as opposed to ethical language in law. Wendell has also made significant contributions to the Pragmatic Approach of Jurisprudence, which was actually founded by him as he was the member of Harvard related club initiated by John Dewey.

He was a person who used to keep a close eye on the consequences and results of a potential idea. He used to analyze things with exceptionally experiencing outlook as far as law and jurisprudence were concerned. He thoughtfully expressed this idea in his book The Common Law. He had a great emphasis over the external factors in the matters of court rather than the internal ones. Through his writings and expressions he demonstrated a strange dimension of philosophy of law, especially in the area of jurisprudence.

He wanted to liberate the law from the restraints to the way of formality and automatic frame of deductive thinking. To do this, he applied the mechanical, experimental, experiencing and consequential approaches also known as ‘pragmatic maxim’ to the principles of law (Watson). Wendell had a distinctive thinking about law and jurisprudence. Previously he had a close relationship with the natural law and natural rights, which encouraged him to maintain a close eye on the consequences of law and jurisprudence.

He considered that values and morals did not have a strong relationship with the proceedings of court. The right and wrong aspects attached to the cases presented in courts are not based upon the purposeful standards, which makes their significance very low. The law differentiates between the good and bad or the culprit and the innocent on the basis of prevailing norms of the society, which in reality do not have any affiliation with the constitution. The realistic approaches of Wendell denied the existence of constitutionalism.

By the end of the Civil War, pragmatism had already founded its way into law and jurisprudence superseding the concept of natural law and n