Sociological School of Jurisprudence

Sociological School of Jurisprudence

• Sociological jurisprudence is usually described as functional jurisprudence or jurisprudence of interests or jurisprudence of social engineering or experimental jurisprudence.
• The main concern of the sociological school of jurisprudence is social interest.
• According to this school, the law is an instrument of social progress.
• Sociological school of jurisprudence emphasizes the study of the effect of law and society on each other.
• The leading exponents of this school were:

1. Auguste Compte
2. Leon Duguit
3. Sharing
4. Elrich
5. Roscoe Pound

AUGUSTE COMTE [1786-1857]:

• French philosopher
• Father of sociological school of jurisprudence.
• He termed the study of society as scientific positivism because according to him, an organization can progress according to the principles formulated based on observation and experiment.

Roscoe Pound [1870-1964]:

• Father of American sociological jurisprudence.
• Major works:
• Spirit of the common law (1921)An introduction to the philosophy of law (1922).Interpretation of legal history(1923).
• The contribution of Roscoe Pound to the sociological jurisprudence may be studied under the following heads:

The functional aspect of the law :

• Roscoe Pound stated that the function of law is to settle the conflicting interests of individuals in the community and harmonize their interrelations. He termed this as ‘Social – engineering’.

Theory of social engineering:

• Social engineering means to speed up the process of social order by making all possible efforts to avoid conflict of interests of individuals in society.
• He categorized various interests.

Jural postulates of Roscoue Pound:

• Jural means legal and postulates means assumptions.
• There are basic assumption for proper order and balance of society.
• These assumption are implied and not expressed from are called as jural postulates.
• Pound mentioned five jural postulates:
• No intentional aggression
• Benificial purpose
• Act in good faith.
• Act with due care
• Strict liability

• Criticism :
• Criticism on the term engineering which equates society to a factory like mechanism .
• Division of interest is not proper.

• LEON DUGUIT(1859-1928):
• French philosopher
• Propounded the theory of social solidarity
• Duguit theory is also based on the theory of Durkheim ‘Division of labour in society’

Definition and scope of medical jurisprudence

What is the School of Jurisprudence?