ABSTRACT
The transformation of the reasonable man into the reasonable judge is conceptually, a cognitive process. Laws and judgments are utterances, not just geared to the structuralists' systemic requirements for a form of social control, but are also statements about the specific nature of a particular form of social control. In trying to understand Volosinov's statement with reference to legal language, the "immediate social situation" is seen as the forum wherein laws are created, and the other forum where the laws are applied. Bell has described three models for judicial intervention in policy decisions. All three models supply criteria by which the judge is enabled to apply standards of reasonableness. The consensus model takes into account the difference between the thinking of the legislator, who enacts a law, and that of the judge, who by his decision may be "making" a law.
