ABSTRACT
A procedural law ties us to the norms of the law of the self and determines their implications for self-judgment. Three primary modes of conducting the trial of self-judgment, three jurisprudences of the inner trial that give self-judgment a bad name, are deeply engraved in Western history: submission, impersonality, and anxiety. Kantian interpretations of self-judgment in the conduct of life follow the paradigm of impersonality without advocating recourse to utilities for the conduct of a moral life. Kafka, deliberately distorting the model of the criminal law, left no place for rebuttal. Self-judgment, like the criminal law, is adversarial; we engage in direct and immediate argument with ourselves. Prosecutorial discretion is a frequent option in a criminal justice system. Rules for duress and ignorance qualifying the conclusion that a decision exists to be judged affect the determination of accountability. In the jurisprudence of the fourth paradigm, plea bargains are an offense as they are not in the system of criminal law.
