Theory and Values in Socio‐legal Studies
| Published date | 01 October 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12047 |
| Author | Roger Cotterrell |
| Date | 01 October 2017 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 44, ISSUE S1, OCTOBER 2017
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. S19±S36
Theory and Values in Socio-legal Studies
Roger Cotterrell*
This article argues that socio-legal studies (SLS) should engage with
ultimate values, in Max Weber's sense, insofar as these influence law
and social action linked to law. The article sketches orientations in
socio-legal research that have deterred concern with such values. It
suggests a way to conceptualize values as a component of culture, and
illustrates this by reference to aspects of the regulation of religious and
ethnic minorities, on the one hand, and business and financial
networks, on the other. Finally, it considers how SLS's commitment to
science impacts on the study of values. It argues that empirically-
grounded socio-legal theory can suggest why and how certain ultimate
values come to seem meaningful and relevant in particular social
conditions. As components of cultural experience, values relate to law
in complex ways, and SLS can and should give more attention to this
relation.
INTRODUCTION
What place should the study of ultimate values or beliefs have in socio-legal
studies (SLS)? These are values or beliefs held, as Max Weber puts it, for
their `own sake';
1
that is, seen by those committed to them as intrinsically
worthy and requiring no special justification. It is easy to think of many such
beliefs or value commitments that closely relate to law and often have
different constituencies of adherents ± for example, absolute commitments to
human rights, to social equality, to the sanctity of private property, to liberty
of contract, to social welfare or wealth redistribution, to religious freedom, to
religious beliefs that seek expression in law, to democracy, and to national
sovereignty or national legal autonomy. Can and should such relatively
S19
*School of Law, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London
E1 4NS, England
r.b.m.cotterrell@qmul.ac.uk
1 M. Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, tr. E. Fischoff
et al. (1968) 25±6.
ß2017 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2017 Cardiff University Law School
abstract ideas be studied directly in the empirically focused enterprise of
SLS? Or should socio-legal scholars, as hard-headed positivists, leave values
to philosophers and jurists except when they are translated in some precise
way into positive law?
This article argues that SLS should concern itself with ultimate values
insofar as these influence law, and social action linked to law. We typically
think of law as focused on governmental, citizens', and corporate interests,
and much SLS work brings to light law's relations with these. But, as Weber
noted, ideas associated with ultimate values and beliefs often determine `the
tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamic of interest'.
2
Values and interests, however conceptualized, sometimes intertwine in
complex and sociologically significant ways.
3
Because values inform action, at least to some extent, they surely inform
the activity of socio-legal research itself. What values guide social research
on law? Even Weber, who famously insisted that social science must be
pursued in a value-free manner and must not be distracted by the value
commitments of the researcher, recognized that the choice of topics for
research is not likely to be neutral, but will be guided by the researcher's (or
sponsor's) preferences or by considerations of cultural relevance; usually
these will be interconnected. Value commitments are part of culture. They
influence directions of research even for those committed to `pure science' ±
entirely disinterested inquiry.
4
And the very idea of commitment to science
imports perhaps debatable values.
5
Many social researchers find it hard to be disinterested when they see
society faced by urgent problems that raise pressing moral issues. A once-
famous presidential address to the American Society for the Study of Social
Problems was titled `Whose Side Are We On?'.
6
However, few professional
researchers want to tie themselves very explicitly to the promotion of par-
ticular values, unless these can be assumed to be shared almost universally
among the audience addressed. Fear of research being dismissed as `biased'
or `unbalanced' goes with the felt need for scientific and thus professional
S20
2 M. Weber, `The Social Psychology of the World Religions' in From Max Weber:
Essays in Sociology, eds. and trs. H. Gerth and C.W. Mills (1948) 280.
3 See, for example, V. Gecas, `The Ebb and Flow of Sociological Interest in Values'
(2008) 23 Sociological Forum 344; A. Miles, `The (Re)genesis of Values: Examining
the Importance of Values for Action' (2015) 80 Am. Sociological Rev. 680; J.L.
Spates, `The Sociology of Values' (1983) 9 Annual Rev. of Sociology 27; R.
Wuthnow, `The Sociological Study of Values' (2008) 23 Sociological Forum 333; R.
Swedberg, `Can There Be a Sociological Concept of Interest?' (2005) 34 Theory and
Society 359; V. Van Dyke, `Values and Interests' (1962) 56 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 567.
4
M. Weber, Methodology of Social Sciences, trs. E.A. Shils and H.A. Finch (1949) ch. 2.
5 See, for example, S.S. Silbey, `What Makes a Social Science of Law?: Doubling the
Social in Socio-Legal Studies' in Exploring the `Socio' of Socio-Legal Studies, ed. D.
Feenan (2013).
6 H.S. Becker, `Whose Side Are We On?' (1967) 14 Social Problems 239.
ß2017 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2017 Cardiff University Law School
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