19 Apr 2012
School
Department
Course
Professor
January 10 - Lecture 1 - Introduction to Morality and the Law
January-10-12
14:02 PM
Introductory Comments
-direct regulations and planning laws e.g. Muslim attaining special zoning positions in planning
board/law; provides opportunities for neighbourhood to complain, allows prejudice
-municipal rule of unrelated adults living in a house at once e.g. 5; need rooming house license; a family
can have any amount of children, so there is no overcrowding rule e.g. there is another purpose driving
the law – the nuclear family is privileged – example of indirect regulation
Principles of Socio-Legal Studies
1. law does not have fixed boundaries and cannot be grasped statistically; law as a discipline e.g.
economics involved, politicians attending law school etc.
-how do problems become legal? When does the law kick in? e.g. youth charged but not sentenced
-e.g. medical document turns legal under certain circumstances like inheritance
2. Sociolegal Studies includes study of informal law, customary law and private law
-e.g. university codes of conduct (private law), unwritten rules for conduct in crowded spaces (informal
law), rules governing dress
-private law applies to small institutions e.g. like gated community residence members, universities
Suggested Reading: Official Graffiti (Hermer and Hunt, Law and Society Review)
3. legal regulation is inherently pluralistic; many systems of rules overlap
-division of regulatory labour involves jurisdictional distinctions, and also other, less formalized, time
and space and situation distinctions
-example; intra-family governance uses distinct rules (re money, possessions, personal labour)
-university sexual harassment policies with conduct policies, day and night law are different in one space
e.g.
-charging own kids rent is like breach of customary rules, family lending money without documentation
etc.
4. The constitutive power of law
-law is the result of social and cultural processes but is itself a social and cultural force
-e.g. legalization of same-sex marriage had social effects
-e.g. discovery of sexual harassment, 1980s
-law responding to social change; how law constitutes society and how society constitutes law
-effects of legal policies on society and how others interact, are treated, effecting relations e.g. treating
lesbians different after allowing same-sex marriage
-e.g. prostitution being legal as undermining women
-recognize legal categories more in society when they are criminalized e.g. when sexual harassment law
was created, would be visible everywhere
5. Indirect vs. direct regulation
-social control not an adequate term to understand legal regulation of morality
-direct control of persons by law for moral reasons has become unusual; rise of rights claims, decline of
status offences
-indirect control ubiquitous (activities and spaces)