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4 - The Empirical Component of Analytic Jurisprudence

from Part I - Foundations and Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2025

By
Frederick Schauer
Edited by
Kevin Tobia
Kevin Tobia
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

As a branch of analytic philosophy, jurisprudence, understood as legal philosophy, is often thought to be a nonempirical enterprise. It turns out, however, that unresearched, unsupported, and largely impressionistic empirical assertions have long been a part of the analytic jurisprudential enterprise. Recognizing this is the first step towards examining and testing these empirical assertions. Using the proclivity of ordinary people to obey the law (or not) because of the content-independent existence of law as one example of such an assertion, this chapter explores how that assumption might be tested by experimental and other means, as a prolegomenon to testing the empirical claims and assumptions that have long pervaded even the most traditional jurisprudence.

Keywords

jurisprudenceobedience to lawempirical legal studies
Type
Chapter
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The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Jurisprudence , pp. 67 - 78
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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