http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/ideology-psychology-and-law/ Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:36:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/ideology-psychology-and-law/#comment-58233 Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:04:29 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=16868#comment-58233 [...] Ideology, Psychology, and Law – via thesituationist.wordpress.com – Formally, the law is based solely on reasoned analysis, devoid of ideological biases or unconscious influences. Judges claim to act as umpires applying the rules, not making them. They frame their decisions as straightforward applications of an established set of legal doctrines, principles, and mandates to a given set of facts. As most legal scholars understand, however, the impression that the legal system projects is largely an illusion. As far back as 1881, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. made a similar claim, writing that “the felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed.” [...]

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