Sociology and Natural Law

AMONG MODERN SOCIOLOGISTS, the reputation of natural law is not high.The phrase conjures up a world of absolutisms, of theological fiat, of fuzzy, unoperational, "mystical" ideas, of thinking uninformed by history and by the variety of human situations.This is sad, because sociology should have a ready affinity for the philosophy of natural law.Both are anti-formalist in spirit.Each looks beyond what is given and immediate to what is latent and inchoate; each is committed to the study of "nature" as yielding something more permanent and more universal than the transitory judgments of the hour or the epoch.One of the chief writers on the sociology of law, Eugen Ehrlich, 1 made a cardinal point of his quest for law, not in formal institutions alone, but in the "inner order" of human associations, in the natural settings and adaptive outcomes of group life."At the present as well as at any other time," Ehrlich wrote, "the center of gravity of legal development lies not in legislation, nor in juristic science, nor in judicial decision, but in society itself." 2 This is not in itself a natural law viewpoint.It does, however, reflect the general emphasis in sociology that education, politics, religion, and other social activities, are found outside of the specialized institutions established to deal with them.Sociology has located these phenomena "in society," that is, in more informal and spontaneous groupings and processes.A corollary view, not usually made explicit, is that sociologists, in looking beyond formal arrangements, are identifying something closer to a "natural" order.Most sociologists today, addressing themselves to the legal order, would still agree with Ehrlich that "the center of gravity of legal development" lies in altered ways of life and in the changing organization of society.They would argue, however, that it is bootless and sterile to call every kind of order "law" and that the study of legal development, including probable future changes in law, entails no commitment to a theory of justice.There would be a fairly ready acceptance of the distinction between law as com-* I should like to record my thanks to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, where this paper was written.For intellectual assistance and encouragement I

Archaeology · Geography · Natural law · Political science · Sociology · Evolving Legal Systems and Governance · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies

• Selznick, Philip (1919–2010)

  Open Access•Jiri Priban•The Blackwell Encyclopedia of…•2017

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