  This provides a rationale both for treating earlier cases as contributing to the law and for the doctrine of stare decisis. Other things being equal, it is better if the law is predictable than if it is unpredictable. It should be noted, however, that such a rationale does not necessarily support as strong a doctrine of precedent as that found in many Common Law jurisdictions. The concern for predictability needs to be weighed against the moral desirability of the law in question. This would suggest that (a) in some circumstances lower courts should be allowed to depart from the decisions of higher courts where their view is that the earlier decision was (in the context of the relevant law) clearly morally undesirable, (b) giving greater freedom to courts to overrule their own decisions on the basis that there was a morally preferable decision (in that legal context).