LIMEN · Legal Liminality: An Inquiry Into the Cognitive Foundations of the Law

Legal theorists have long argued that law is more than enforcement, i.e. rather than being just an externally observedphenomenon, that it involves a cognitive element on the part of participants in the practice. The dominant accounts of thiscognitive element divide into those—within the law and economics paradigm—that see it as a cost-benefit analysis andothers—in the natural law tradition—that conflate it with morality. Recent evidence suggests, however, that the picture ismore complex: neither are human beings as relentlessly self-interested as they are parodied to be as the homo economicusof rational-choice theory nor do they possess unlimited altruism. But there has been very little systematic inquiry—certainlyof an empirical nature—into the question: what are the cognitive foundations of law— as a mode of cooperation—that makeit distinct from other institutions? This project will attempt to fill that gap by trying to understand the relationship betweendecision-making at the individual level, group behaviour and social outcomes—focusing, in particular, on the role of trust andthe notion of community in mediating these relationships, and the point at which social norms “tip” into law. Joining the dotsbetween behavioural law and economics, moral psychology, legal theory and economic sociology, it will draw on the rangeof methodologies currently in use in the American Empirical Legal Studies tradition (with a focus on behavioural techniques)and extend current practice by developing an approach specifically adapted to legal scholarship. This ground breakingresearch will seek to stretch the boundaries of current knowledge—in disciplinary, methodological and, ultimately,theoretical terms— through pioneering approaches to the empirical study of law and thereby contribute to real world changein the way that law and legal systems function, with implications for development, climate change, regional alliances and arange of other key challenges.