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Law, science, and humanity

The normative foundation of social science in law

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Law and Human Behavior

Abstract

Opposition by the American Psychological Association and the American Psychology-Law Society to the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court would have been justified on normative grounds by the inconsistency of Bork's views with the values underlying the social science in law (SSL) movement. SSL and the Chicago school of law and economics share realist beliefs about the social and political foundations of judicial behavior and the desirability of systematic empirical study as a means of facilitating the administration of justice, but the normative assumptions of the two schools of thought differ. Whereas the Chicago school, with which Bork is identified, reveres wealth maximization. SSL is intended to promote the values fundamental to the Constitution (e.g., respect for human dignity) and reverence for the law as an institution that reifies our sense of community.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Law Psychology Program, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 209 Burnett, 68588-0308, Lincoln, Nebraska

    Gary B. Melton

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  1. Gary B. Melton
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This article is based on an invited address to the American Psychology-Law Society (Division 41) at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Atlanta, August 1988. I am indebted to Alan Tomkins for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript and to Brian Wilcox and Gregory Wilmoth for their detailed personal communications describing the activities of organized psychology in regard to the Bork nomination. Acknowledgment is also due James Ogloff for his assistance with libary research.

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Melton, G.B. Law, science, and humanity. Law Hum Behav 14, 315–332 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01068159

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