Attitude Theories of the Law

Abstract

In any legal field, numerous normative dilemmas and conflicts arise as to what the legal rules should be. Attitudes toward these conflicts shape legal policy and decision-making. Thus, studying legal attitudes is essential for predicting legal actors’ decisions and understanding the underlying reasons for existing legal doctrines and judgments. To date, many studies have focused on the links between political and cultural attitudes and judicial decision-making. However, only few scholars have attempted to provide a complete descriptive account for the basic conflicts that divide people over distinctively legal issues.

The main objective of this article is to introduce a method for studying the richness of people’s legal attitudes. Building on previous studies of attitudes and the law, and on methods developed in other spheres for constructing, testing, and applying attitude theories, this article advocates the development of attitude theories of the law, that would map the key-conflicts in any legal field. Specifically, it provides a description of what constitutes a legal attitude theory and how such theories could be utilized; sets the criteria for evaluating such theories; and proposes an empirical methodology for testing these theories and for assessing the legal attitudes of individuals.

Keywords: attitudes, decision making, thoery of law

JEL Classification: K10