  In an institutionalised system with many decision-makers and a heterogeneous group of legal materials there is a tension between decision-making being relatively predictable for those to whom it will apply and the law being morally improved. In such a context precedent and analogy help to shore up the predictability of decisions whilst leaving room for courts to improve the law. They do this in two different ways. Precedents are distinguishable (and subject to overruling), while analogies provide non-conclusive reasons for reaching a particular outcome. The success of these compromises depends upon there being a fair measure of background agreement between decision-makers over the important values served by the law—both measures would be too weak in the face of widespread and deep value disagreement. A range of mechanisms exist in law that help maintain such a relative consensus: legal education, the working environment, and the selection of candidates for the bench all tend to produce more convergence than is found in the general community. In addition, there is an internal feedback element—in deciding cases, courts are aware that their decisions can be distinguished (as well as overruled), and that it is only their ruling that are binding on later courts. This gives them good reasons to press justifications that are based on values widely endorsed by their brethren.