ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the applicability of the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification, a distinction that has been almost orthodox doctrine in the philosophy of science, to the issue of the "objectivity" of judicial decisionmaking. It briefly considers some possible comparisons between the structure of justifications in law and science as that structure was conceived by philosophers of science who emphasized the discovery–justification distinction and whose approach was dominant until the decline of logical positivism in recent years. The subjective factors play a role in judicial decision and are essential elements in the explanation of such decisions purportedly undermines the possibility of judicial objectivity. Norwood Russell Hanson argues that philosophers of science have been too much enamored by the "Logic of the Finished Research Report", just as Jerome Frank holds that legal theorists have been too much enamored by judges' opinions.
