'Social Engineering by Roscoe Pound': Issues in Legal and Political Philosophy

Abstract

Man is a social animal and needs a society for his leaving, working and enjoying life. A group of individual forms a society. Society has become an essential condition for human life to develop his or her personality. Therefore society and human life always go together. Every human being has also born with some desires and expectations which are inherent in nature. From childhood to till old age, every human being expects that his or her desire is to be fulfilled for which their arise conflict of desires or claims which comes under the term ‘interest’. It is impossible to fulfil all the desires of a human being. So to fulfil the desires of maximum human being for the welfare of society the concept of Social Engineering was emerged and which was coined by Roscoe Pound.

The force which asks for the adoption of Social engineering is nothing but the conflict of interests of individuals. Interests more particularly the conflicting interest are the subject of Social Engineering. Social engineering is based on the notion that Laws are used as a means to shape society and regulate people’s behaviour. It is an attempt to control the human conduct through the help of Law. According to Pound, ‘Law is social engineering which means a balance between the competing interests in society’, in which applied science are used for resolving individual and social problems. For this purpose this paper is going to discuss about the mechanism of Law in bringing Social Engineering. This paper is divided into three parts. Part II will discuss about the object of the paper. Part III will give suggestions and conclusion.

Keywords: social engineering, law

JEL Classification: K04, K40