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Behavioral Jurisprudence

1968; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 2; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3052896

1540-5893

Glendon Schubert,

Behavioral and Psychological Studies

For over two thousand years, the science of law has been a dull esoteric subject, with traditional logic its long suit and the syllogism its ace in the hole. The erudite tended to empathize with Socrates, who could define justice only in metaphysical terms, and to scorn the occasional iconoclasts in the Thrasymachian tradition, who would have operationalized the concept of justice on the basis of political interrelationships of power and influence. Throughout these two millennia, jurisprudence was a “science” only in the sense of “moral science,” that is to say, it was a branch of philosophy. It was concerned with prescriptive norms rather than with descriptions of human action, and therefore it dealt almost exclusively with ideals for, rather than with the realities of, the behavior of judges, lawyers, jurors, and litigants.