Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T20:27:50.770Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Socio-legal studies and the humanities – law, interdisciplinarity and integrity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2009

Melanie L. Williams
Melanie L. Williams*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper was delivered as a plenary lecture, designed to respond to the one-day special conference focus upon links between socio-legal studies and the humanities.1 The paper focuses in particular upon the relationship between law and the humanities. It may be argued that the role of empirically sourced socio-legal research is well accepted, given its tangible utility in terms of producing hard data which can inform and transform policy perspectives. However, scholarly speculation about the relationship between law and the humanities ranges from the indulgent to the hostile. In particular, legal scholars aligning themselves as ‘black letter’ commentators express strong opinions about such links, suggesting that scholarship purporting to establish links between the two fields is essentially spurious, bearing in mind the purposive role of law as a problem-solving mechanism. The paper sets out to challenge such assertions, indicating the natural connections between the two fields and the philosophical necessity of continued interaction, given the fact that certain aspects of human experience and nature cannot be plumbed by doctrine or empiricism or even by combinations of the two. Law must be understood to stand at the nexus of human experience, in a relationship of integrity, where the word is understood to mean both morally principled and culturally integrated. In particular, the development of human qualities, of character and moral sensibility informing normative values – and, ultimately, engagement with the world of law – is a process of subtle cultural as well as psychological significance, and may benefit from interrogation deriving from the wider fields of human discourse.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , September 2009 , pp. 243 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almog, Shulamit (2007) ‘Windows and “Windows”: Reflections on Law and Literature in the Digital Age’, University of Toronto Law Journal 57: 755–80.Google Scholar
Aristodemou, Maria (1999) ‘Fantasies of Women as Law-Makers: Subversion or Evasion in Angela Carter’s Bloody Chambers’, in Freeman, Michael and Lewis, Andrew (eds) Current Legal Issues 1999, vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 191–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balkin, Jack M. and Levinson, Sanford. (2006) ‘Law and the Humanities: An Uneasy Relationship’, Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 18: 155–87.Google Scholar
Ballard, J. G. (1995[1973]) Crash. London: Vintage [first published 1973, by Jonathan Cape].Google Scholar
Ballard, J. G (2008) ‘How J. G. Ballard came to write Crash’, The Sunday Times, 27 January. Available at http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article3241208.ece.Google Scholar
Benedict, Ruth (1954[1946]) The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture. Rutland, VT/Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co.Google Scholar
Berube, Michael (2003) ‘The Utility of the Arts and the Humanities’, Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 2(1): 23–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Stephen (1994) ‘“The Quality of Mercy”: Law, Equity and Ideology in The Merchant of Venice’, Mosaic 27: 35–54.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald (1988) Law’s Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Edgerton, Henry W. (1929–1930) ‘Seduction – Loss of Services Caused by Girl’s Commitment as Incorrigible’, Illinois Law Review 24: 232–36.Google Scholar
Franklin, James (1995) ‘Philosophy, Mathematics and Structure’, Philosopher 1(2): 31–38. Available at http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/interview.html.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Natasha (2008) ‘Universities Face Arts and Humanities Funding Cuts’, The Guardian (Education supplement), 17 January. Available at www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/jan/17/universityfunding.highereducation.Google Scholar
Howarth, David (2004) ‘Is Law a Humanity, or is it More Like Engineering?’ Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 3(1): 9–28.Google Scholar
Ireland, Paddy (1995) ‘Reflections on a Rampage through the Barriers of Shame: Law, Community and the New Conservatism’, Journal of Law and Society 22(2): 189–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, W. L., Marshall, L. E., Serran, G. A. and O’brien, M. D. (2009) ‘Self-esteem, Shame, Cognitive Distortions and Empathy in Sexual Offenders: Their Integration and Treatment Implications’, Psychology, Crime and Law 15(2–3): 217–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mcalinden, Anne-Marie (2005) ‘The Use of “Shame” with Sexual Offenders’, British Journal of Criminology 45: 373–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moorcock, Michael (2009) ‘My Friend J. G. Ballard, the Homely Visionary’, The Times, 25 April. Available at http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6160194.ece.Google Scholar
Morgan, Michael L. (2008). On Shame: Thinking in Action. New York and London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Morrison, Wayne (2006) Criminology, Civilisation and the New World Order. London: Routledge-Cavendish.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha (2006) Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame and the Law. Princeton: Princeton University PressGoogle Scholar
Proeve, Michael and Howells, Kevin (2002) ‘Shame and Guilt in Child Sex Offenders’, International Journal of Offender Therapeutic and Comparative Criminology 46: 657–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuel, Geoffrey (2008) ‘Is Law Really a Social Science? A View from Comparative Law’, Cambridge Law Journal 67(2): 288–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepherd, Jessica (2007) ‘A Difficult Patch: Disagreements Over Research are Straining the Relationship Between the Treasury and Universities’, The Guardian, 30 January. Available at www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/jan/30/researchassessmentexercise.research.Google Scholar
Simmonds, Nigel E. (2005) ‘Law as a Moral Idea’, University of Toronto Law Journal 55(1): 61–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, Mary White, Dobbins, Shirley and Gatowksi, Sophia (1996), ‘“Real Rapes” and “Real Victims”, the Shared Reliance on Common Cultural Definitions of Rape’, Feminist Legal Studies IV(2): 159–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarnopolsky, Christina (2004) ‘Prudes, Perverts and Tyrants: Plato and the Contemporary Politics of Shame’, Political Theory 32(4): 468–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temkin, Jennifer (2002) Rape and the Legal Process, 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walters, Mark (2008) ‘Legal Humanism and Law-as-integrity’, Cambridge Law Journal, 67(2): 352–75.Google Scholar
Weisberg, Richard H. (1996) Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Sally and Shaw, Jo (1994) Contract Law, Cases, Materials and Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard (1994) ‘Shame and Autonomy’ in Williams, Bernard, Shame and Necessity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 75–102.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard (1995) Making Sense of Humanity. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams Committee (1979) Report of the Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship (Cmnd 7772).Google Scholar
Williams, Melanie (1999a) ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles and the Law of Provocation’ in Freeman, Michael and Lewis, Andrew (eds) Current Legal Issues, vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 167–90.Google Scholar
Williams, Melanie (1999b) ‘Is Alec a Rapist? – Connotations of “Rape” and “Seduction”: A Reply to Professor John Sutherland’, Feminist Legal Studies 7: 299–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Melanie (2005) ‘Savage or Citizen? The Crash of the Moral Mirror’ in Williams, Melanie (ed.) Secrets and Laws. London: UCL Press, 83–100.Google Scholar
Young, Virginia Held (2005) Ruth Benedict. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar