Transforming Law and Society

Author: (USA) Nonet, (USA) Selznick, translated by Zhang Zhiming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: The title of this book indicates that the authors aim to reform the legal system and establish a normative model that meets the needs of social change. The basic concept is to unify substantive justice and procedural justice within a certain system, while reducing intermediate links and expanding participation opportunities, thereby maintaining universal norms and public order while realizing the variable value expectations of people according to the inherent logic of law. From the perspective of the evolution of the legal system, the emergence of this "responsive law" is somewhat inevitable. They categorize the existing legal phenomena in society into three types: "repressive law," "autonomous law," and "responsive law" as the direction of reform. The main arguments of this book are largely consistent with the research directions of American legal realism and Pound (Roscoe Pound) sociological jurisprudence. Nonet and Selznick even claim that responsive law is the true program of these pragmatic legal theories. Because it marks a more advanced stage of legal evolution, serving as the inheritance and development of autonomous law. To a certain extent, one can consider responsive law to be both universal and particular; or, it is very close to the dialectical state described by Hegel: only the rational is real, and only the real is rational.