ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the conceptual reasons why theories of virtue have only a discreet impact within legal theory, within the theory of legal decision-making. Zenon Bankowski in Living Lawfully provides a crucial element for an appropriate philosophical account of legal decision-making that is able to explain that capacity. Bankowski's theory comes precisely from its capacity to generate conceptual resources that allow for a smoother transition from the conceptual scaffolding that holds general phronesis together to a specifically legal conception. The relatively weak impact that theories of virtue have had within the theory of legal reasoning relates to the widespread assumption that while virtues might be relevant as part of a more general theory of what constitutes a good moral character, it has little or nothing to say about right action. The institutional context in which a relatively strict division of rational labour between law-creation and law-application institutions sits uncomfortably with the holistic conception of the virtuous rational agent.
