The legal virtue of reflexivity and the rule of law

Isabel Trujillo

Chapter 5 in Virtues and the Rule of Law, 2026, pp 93-111 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explores reflexivity as a core legal virtue essential to sustaining the rule of law. Building on virtue ethics and jurisprudence, it argues that virtues in law are not merely moral traits but cognitive and institutional capacities necessary for the implementation of the rule of law. Reflexivity describes the form of legal knowledge that enables legal practitioners to connect the normative ideal of the rule of law with concrete legal actions, fostering awareness of how behaviours and decisions uphold or threaten the rule of law. The aim of the chapter is to show how reflexivity guides lawyers, judges, and citizens. In adjudication, reflexivity operates through role-awareness, argumentative responsibility, and self-restraint. More broadly, the analysis highlights reflexivity as a bridge between law as an institutional practice and law as a normative ideal, sustaining the rule of law as a shared and self-corrective legal order.

Keywords: Virtue Ethics; Rule Of Law; Reflexivity; Legal Practitioners; Legal Knowledge; Judicial Virtues (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035398072
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