Making Law Modern: Toward a Contextual Model of Justice

Source: (2002) Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law. 8(1).

Contemporary psychological and legal models of behavior are still fundamentally at odds, and the impending paradigm clash may have profound, long-term consequences four our 21century legal doctrines and institutions. The 19th-century, “formative era” of American law coincided with the dominance of psychological individualism in the nation’s collective view of human nature and resulted in the institutionalization of a now antiquated model of human behavior. As we enter the new millennium, a new legal realism based on a view of human nature more consistent with contemporary psychological thinking is urged, along with a series of interlocking legal changes intended to both incorporate a more contextual view of human nature into law nad improbe the quality of justice our system currently dispenses.