But pragmatists are not content with a vague neotraditionalism. They know it will not do to tell judges to resolve all doubts against change and freeze law as it is, let alone to return to some past epoch in legal revolution (1950? 1850?). As society changes, judges, within the broad limits set by the legislators and by the makers of the Constitution, must adapt the law to its altered environment. No version of traditionalism will tell them how to do this. For this they need ends and an awareness of how social change affects the appropriate means-how, for example, the coming of the telegraph and the telephone altered the conditions for regulating contracts. They need, in short, the instrumental sense that is basic to pragmatism.

DEFINE: Clarifies pragmatism's legal doctrine: instrumental adaptation rather than freezing law against change.

Richard A. Posner, Richard A. Posner - What Ha…, loc. 123