Who's afraid of the big bad fish? Rethinking what the law wishes to have Morss, John R. 2003, Who's afraid of the big bad fish? Rethinking what the law wishes to have, Melbourne University law review, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 199-216. Attached Files Name Description MIMEType Size Downloads morss-whosafraidofthebig-2003.pdf Published version application/pdf 807.61KB 60 Title Who's afraid of the big bad fish? Rethinking what the law wishes to have Author(s) Morss, John R. orcid.org/0000-0002-0925-2525 Journal name Melbourne University law review Volume number 27 Issue number 1 Start page 199 End page 216 Publisher Melbourne University Place of publication Melbourne, Vic. Publication date 2003-04 ISSN 0025-8938 1839-3810 Summary This article aims to re-evaluate the contribution of Stanley Fish to legal studies. In  "The Law  Wishes to Have a Formal existence", Fish accused the law of maintaining a formal,  positivistic self-image as principled; an activity rhat rises above processes of interpretation and of moral judgement. For this `antiformalist‘ Fish there is thus a false sense of self-sufficent closure to the law's discourse. More recently however: in discussing the practice of another profession (namely literary criticism) Fish demonstrates that the basis of aclivity per se is internal intelligibility - that is intelligibility  within a defined community. These apparent  inconsistencies are explored. Re-reading `The Law Wishes to Have a Formal Existence' one can discern errors in Fish's account of a key case and one can also find support for the  professionalism position that he subsequently articulates. It is therefore argued that  Fish's account of the general characteristics of professional practice, including legal, are of value. The implications of his account of professionalism in the law are, however, incompatible with the usual understanding of his more combative statements about the role of formal language and principle-based argument of the law. Language eng Field of Research 180199 Law not elsewhere classified Socio Economic Objective 970118 Expanding Knowledge in Law and Legal Studies HERDC Research category C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal ERA Research output type C Journal article Copyright notice ©2003, Melbourne University Free to Read? Yes Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30004092 Document type: Journal Article Collections: Faculty of Arts and Education Faculty of Business and Law Law Higher Education Research Group Open Access Collection Related Links Link Description Connect to published version (restricted access) Go to link with your DU access privileges     Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in DRO is owned by the author, with all rights reserved. Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that permission has been obtained for items included in DRO. If you believe that your rights have been infringed by this repository, please contact drosupport@deakin.edu.au. Versions Version Filter Type Mon, 08 Dec 2008, 15:09:22 EST Wed, 10 Jun 2009, 15:37:27 EST Tue, 18 Aug 2009, 11:43:21 EST Tue, 25 Aug 2009, 15:12:50 EST Fri, 09 Apr 2010, 13:04:47 EST Fri, 28 May 2010, 16:08:16 EST Mon, 16 Jun 2014, 07:30:18 EST Mon, 01 Jun 2015, 15:15:16 EST Tue, 06 Sep 2016, 09:29:09 EST Tue, 05 Dec 2017, 06:13:28 EST Mon, 22 Jan 2018, 13:52:46 EST Fri, 07 Sep 2018, 17:59:22 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 0 times in TR Web of Science Cited 0 times in Scopus Search Google Scholar Access Statistics: 1409 Abstract Views, 60 File Downloads  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Mon, 07 Jul 2008, 09:11:50 EST