| Overview
The
Dawn of the Social Sciences
Baron
de Montesquieu (1689—1755): “De Montesquieu argued that law was related
to a society’s culture and determined by various external circumstances,
including social and natural conditions as well as historical antecedents.”
(pp.18-19)
Cesare
Beccaria (1738—1794): “Beccaria opposed capital punishment on the grounds
that the state cannot legitimately claim the right to take lives and because
the death penalty is neither necessary nor useful.” (p.20)
Jeremy
Bentham (1748—1832): “...Bentham applied his utilitarian philosophy to
law to argue that the legal system should be founded on the principle to
provide the greatest possible happiness to the greatest possible number
of people.” (p.21)
Alexis
de Tocqueville (1805—1859): “De Tocqueville especially commended the qualities
of the jury system to bring about an education into the law and create
a sense of civic responsibility in contributing to society and its government.”
(p.22)
Henry
Maine (1822—1888): “...Maine argued that societies of different historical
epochs will share characteristics in their legal systems if they also share
other societal circumstances.” (p.23)
The Perspective
of Historical Materialism
Karl
Marx (1818—1883): “Similar to Marx’s notion of the state, his perspective
on law is instrumentalist and views the legal system in function of its
role as an instrument of control serving bourgeois interests.” (p.27)
The Early
Sociologists
Herbert
Spencer (1820—1903): “On the basis of this liberal individualist standpoint,
Spencer maintained that government action and law in modern societies would
primarily have to protect human liberty.” (p.30)
William
Graham Sumner (1840—1910): “As an instrument of social change, law can
fulfill its proper role only if it conforms to the mores of a society or
one of its sub-groups to which laws are applied.” (p.31)
Georg
Simmel (1858—1918): “Law is reserved for matters that are considered indispensable
to the functioning of society as a whole, not mere private concerns.” (p.32)
Ferdinand
Tönnies (1855—1936): “Tönnies argues that the evolution of law
revealed that while all law is both natural and artificial, the artificial
element in law had become dominant in the course of history, involving
a gradual evolution from common to statutory law.” (p.34)
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Selected
Online Articles (external links)
 Montesquieu,
Baron de. (1748). The
Spirit of Laws. Based on a public domain edition published in 1914
by G. Bell & Sons, Ltd., London. [ at
the website of the Constitution Society]
Ehrlich,
Eugen. 1916. “Montesquieu
and Sociological Jurisprudence.” Harvard Law Review 29(6):582-600.
[
privately posted, public domain]
Beccaria, Cesare. (1764)
1986. On
Crimes and Punishments. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. [at
crimetheory.com]
Bentham,
Jeremy. (1789). An
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. From The
Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor,
John Bowring. Edinburgh: William Tait, 1843. 11 vols. Vol. 1. [at
the Online Library of Liberty; also at google
books]
 Bentham,
Jeremy. (1802) 1914. Bentham's
Theory of Legislation. Being Principes de législation and Traités
de législation, civile et pénale. London: Oxford University
Press. [at the internat archive;
also at google
books]
Bentham,
Jeremy. (1792) 1843. “Truth
versus Ashhurst; Or, Law as It Is, Contrasted With What It Is Said to Be.”
Pp. 231—237 in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Volume V. Edinburgh: Tait;
London: Simpkin, Marshall. [at
the Macquarie Law website]
Tocqueville, Alexis de. (1835/1840).
Democracy
in America. [at the website
of the American Studies Programs at The University of Virginia]
Lennertz,
James E. 1984. "Tocqueville's
Models of Law, Religion and Democracy in America: Virtue, Interest, and
the Duty to Rescue." Journal of Law and Religion 2(1):69-84.
Maine,
Henry Sumner. (1861). Ancient
Law: Its Connection with the Early History of Society and Its Relation
to Modern Ideas. [at The
Avalon Project at Yale Law School]
Marx, Karl. 1842. “Debates
on the Law on Thefts of Wood.” Supplement to the Rheinische Zeitung,  October-November
1842. [at
the Marxists.org Internet Archive]
Marx,
Karl. 1846. Selection
from The German Ideology: Part I: Feuerbach, Section B. The Illusion of
the Epoch. [at
the Marxists.org Internet Archive]
Marx,
Karl. 1846. Selection
from The German Ideology: “The Relation of State and Law to Property.”[at
the Marxists.org Internet Archive]
Marx,
Karl. 1869. “Report
of the General Council on the Right of Inheritance.” Written
on behalf of the International Workingmen’s Association. [at
the Marxists.org Internet Archive]
Cain,
Maureen. 1974. "The
Main Themes of Marx' and Engels' Sociology of Law." British Journal
of Law and Society 1(2):136-148.
Stone,
Alan. 1985. “The
Place of Law in the Marxian Structure-Superstructure Archetype.” Law
and Society Review 19(1):39-68.
 Spencer,
Herbert. (1853) 1992. “Over-Legislation.”
In his The Man Versus The State, with Six Essays on Government, Society,
and Freedom. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund. [at
econlib.org]
Spencer, Herbert. (1884)
1992. “The
Sins of Legislators.” In his The Man Versus The State, with Six Essays
on Government, Society, and Freedom. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund. [at
econlib.org]
Sumner,
William Graham. 1906. Folkways:
A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores
and Morals. Boston: Ginn. [at
google books]
 Sumner,
William Graham. (1909) 1911. "The
Mores of the Present and the Future." In War and Other Essays. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [at
google books]
Sumner,
William Graham. (1910) 1911. "Religion
and the Mores." In War and Other Essays. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press. [at google books; also
as private
posting, public domain]
Ball,
Harry V., George Eaton Simpson, and Kiyoshi Ikeda. 1962. "Law
and Social Change: Sumner Reconsidered." American Journal of Sociology
67(5):532-540.
Simmel,
Georg. 1896. "Superiority
and Subordination as Subject-Matter of Sociology." (part I, part
II). American Journal of Sociology 2:167-189, 392-415. [at
the Mead Project]
 Simmel,
Georg. 1902. "The
Number of Members as Determining the Sociological Form of the Group." (part
I,
part II). American Journal of Sociology 8:1-46. [at
the Mead Project]
Simmel,
Georg. 1917. Grundfragen
der Soziologie (Individuum und Gesellschaft). Berlin; Leipzig: G.J.
Goeschen. [at Georg Simmel
Online]
Tönnies,
Ferdinand. 1891. "The Prevention
of Crime." International Journal of Ethics 2(1):51-77. [
private posting, public domain]
Deflem,
Mathieu. 1999. "Ferdinand
Tönnies on Crime and Society: An Unexplored Contribution to Criminological
Sociology." History of the Human Sciences 12(3):87-116. [at
the author's website]
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