Sociological Jurisprudence

Law has a purpose in society.

Human effort must be employed to make law more fulfilling with this purpose. Jurisprudence and legal philosophy are the guiding hands for human direction.

Pragmatic definitions of Law:

Legal order: uniform, systematic, and orderly application of a political force in society. Body of authoritative precepts, and techniques for the development and application. The processes by which causes and controversies are determined in order to promote legal

order within the society.

*The three meanings of law as enumerated above are unified by means of social control, and consequently—Law is a highly specialized means of social control carried on by an authoritative body.

**The Poundian definition of Law.

The purpose of Law is to affect a means of Social Engineering.

According to Pound, there are two types of engineers:

Maintain current machineries, and duplicate them when necessary Construct new machineries for new purposes

Pound’s 5 stages of legal development seeks to explain the end or ends of the law for each of the stages.

The engineering metaphor is applied as a means to explain that as the tools and techniques for law develops, it uplifts itself from the first class of Engineer unto the second.

In its primitive stage, law was the weakest form of social instrument with singular purpose of “keeping the peace”.

The next stage is described as the stage of strict law, whereby law became the prevailing means of regulating society through a set of inflexible and inelastic rules. Its purpose in this stage was to maintain general security by using tools of certainty and formality in order to prevent and settle disputes.

The third stage is the stage of equity/natural law, this stage is characterized by applying ethical solutions in order to settle actual controversies and to affect justice within the social machine.

The fourth stage is the maturity of law. It is highly characterized by the keywords of “equality” and “security” with the championing of property and contracts as fundamental ideas. Permits the maximum of individual self-assertion.

The fifth stage is the socialization of law. It is in this stage where the task of law is enlarged to two primary functions of both maintaining and furthering civilization.

Civilization: the social development of human powers towards their highest possible unfolding.

The jural postulates of civil society.

The jurist lays out the lines of creative activity of law, and he must have a clear picture where he by which he will do so.

Such picture is ascertained through the formulation of the ideas of jural postulates of the civilization of the time and place.

Interpretation of law in terms of a purpose:

Will make good reasonable expectations which their promises or other conduct reasonably create. (Contracts/Quasi-Contracts)

Will carry out their undertakings according to the expectations which the moral sentiment of the community attaches thereto. (Nature of Obligations)

Will restore specifically or by equivalent what comes to them by mistake or unanticipated situation whereby they receive, at another’s expense, what they could not reasonable have expected to receive under the actual circumstances. (Unjust Enrichment)

Additional postulates:

That men must be able to assume that they will be secure in their jobs. (The Security of Tenure)

That men must be able to assume that the enterprise which employs them or others shall bear the burden of the human wear and tear caused in its operation. (Remuneration and Worker Benefits)

That men must be able to assume that society as a whole will bear the risk of harm or misfortune befalling its individual members. (Extended definition of 2nd additional postulate)

The Theory of Interests

An “instrumentalist” interpretation of legal history. The claim, want, demand of the individual human being to have, do, not have to do. The concept of “interest” had not begun until Man realized there were not enough

goods to go around (Scarcity), that the world was overcrowded (Overpopulation), and its resources were exploited

The central problems/issues of “jurisprudence of interests”:

Delimitation of pressing interests at any time The inventory of these interests and classification of these interests Their evaluation

The law must then decide which interest it shall protect or secure, and in the event of conflict of interests, it must then also decide if it will intervene at all and to what end.

*Pound maintains that the taking of an inventory of interests is toward the actual assertions of Men in the particular society they live on through the use of their assertions or claims in legal proceedings, and in legislative proposals.