Book contents
- Law and Mind
- Law and the Cognitive Sciences
- Law and Mind
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- I Metatheory and Methodology
- II Ontology and Epistemology
- III Legal Doctrine and Cognitive Sciences
- 11 Private Law and Cognitive Science
- 12 Private Law and Cognitive Science: A Methodological Commentary
- 13 Responsibility, Liability, and Retribution
- 14 Guilt in Criminal Law: Guilt in Us or in the Stars?
- 15 The Insanity Defense
- 16 Thoughts on the Insanity Defence
- IV Evidence
- V Dissenting Opinions
- References
11 - Private Law and Cognitive Science
from III - Legal Doctrine and Cognitive Sciences
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2021
Book contents
- Law and Mind
- Law and the Cognitive Sciences
- Law and Mind
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- I Metatheory and Methodology
- II Ontology and Epistemology
- III Legal Doctrine and Cognitive Sciences
- 11 Private Law and Cognitive Science
- 12 Private Law and Cognitive Science: A Methodological Commentary
- 13 Responsibility, Liability, and Retribution
- 14 Guilt in Criminal Law: Guilt in Us or in the Stars?
- 15 The Insanity Defense
- 16 Thoughts on the Insanity Defence
- IV Evidence
- V Dissenting Opinions
- References
Summary
This article explores how cognitive science can inform the theory and practice of private law. In the light of the findings about human mind and behavior, it scrutinizes the assumptions private law makes about what human beings are and what they do. Further, it shows that cognitive science can help lawyers not only to understand the world better, but also to more effectively draft rules governing it.
The image of a human presupposed by private law – homo legalis privatus – is someone having free will and consciously directing their behavior to align with adopted goals and intentions; someone who understands the consequences of their actions and might be held responsible for the concluded contracts and the committed torts. Cognitive science does not compel us to deem any of these assumptions untrue or incorrect, but it does invite more caution when adopting strong binaries and assuming that humans always perform at the peak of their capacity. How to assess these presuppositions will depend on one’s normative view of the role of private law in our societies. The chapter compares the roles assumptions play in the behavior-guiding and deontological theories of private law, and argues that for the former what matters is usefulness, while the latter focuses on truth. Which approach to take, however, is not a scientific or legal choice, but a political one.
Further, cognitive science can help lawyers understand the changing nature of the private law society in the digitally mediated, cognitively driven marketplace. Private law presupposes not only certain features of natural persons, but also the types of actions they undertake, types of relations they engage in, and types of objects they control. These elements, in turn, are contingent upon the state of technology, culture, and science. Currently, new types of activities occur, like micro-targeted behavioral advertising; and new types of commodities, like humans’ attention and future conduct form objects of private law relations. These transformations result directly from the application of cognitive insights by corporations, and their will to develop new knowledge about people’s preferences and behavior. The chapter takes a closer look at the emergence of this novel phenomenon – “private cognitive science” – partly caused by, and partly demanding a response from, private law.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Law and MindA Survey of Law and the Cognitive Sciences, pp. 217 - 248Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
References
Balkin, J. M. (2015). Information Fiduciaries and the First Amendment. UCDL Review, 49, 1183.Google Scholar
Balkin, J. M. (2018). Fixing Social Media’s Grand Bargain. Hoover Working Group on National Security, Technology, and Law, Aegis Series Paper (1814).Google Scholar
Bar-Gill, O. (2012). Seduction by Contract: Law, Economics, and Psychology in Consumer Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bartol, C. R., & Bartol, A. M. (2019). Psychology and Law: Research and Practice. Los Angeles: SAGE.Google Scholar
Ben-Shahar, O., & Schneider, C. E. (2014). More Than You Wanted to Know: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Benson, P. (2001). The Theory of Contract Law: New Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blitz, M. J. (2017). Searching Minds by Scanning Brains: Neuroscience Technology and Constitutional Privacy Protection. Cham: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Böhm, F. (1966). Privatrechtsgesellschaft und Marktwirtschaft. ORDO: Jahrbuch Für Die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 17, 75–151. www.jstor.org/stable/23742267.Google Scholar
Brożek, B. (2017b). The Troublesome “Person.” In Legal Personhood: Animals, Artificial Intelligence and the Unborn. Cham: Springer, pp. 3–13.Google Scholar
Brożek, B. (2019). The Legal Mind: A New Introduction to Legal Epistemology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calabresi, G. (1965). The Decision for Accidents: An Approach to Nonfault Allocation of Costs. Harvard Law Review, 78(4), 713–745.Google Scholar
Chabris, C. F., & Simons, D. (2011). The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us. Chicago: Harmony.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (2019). Between Truth and Power: The Legal Constructions of Informational Capitalism. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Draper, N. A. (2019). The Identity Trade: Selling Privacy and Reputation Online. New York: NYU Press.Google Scholar
Draper, N. A., & Turow, J. (2017). Audience Constructions, Reputations, and Emerging Media Technologies. In Brownsword, Roger, Scotford, Eloise, and Yeung, Karen (eds.),The Oxford Handbook of Law, Regulation and Technology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fruehwald, E. S. (2018). Understanding and Overcoming Cognitive Biases for Lawyers and Law Students: Becoming a Better Lawyer Through Cognitive Science. San Bernandino, CA: CreateSpace.Google Scholar
Gibbs, S. (2014, July 2). Facebook Apologises for Psychological Experiments on Users. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-apologises-psychological-experiments-on-usersGoogle Scholar
Gneezy, U., & Rustichini, A. (2000). A Fine Is a Price. The Journal of Legal Studies 29(1), 1–17.Google Scholar
Gordley, J. (2006). Foundations of Private Law: Property, Tort, Contract, Unjust Enrichment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Granhag, P. A., Bull, R., Shaboltas, A., & Dozortseva, E. (eds.). (2016). Psychology and Law in Europe: When West Meets East. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hage, J. (2011). A Model of Juridical Acts: Part 1: The World of Law. Artificial Intelligence and Law 19(1), 23–48.Google Scholar
Hage, J. (2013). Juridical Acts and the Gap Between Is and Ought. Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy 42, 50.Google Scholar
Hayek, F. A. (1945). The Use of Knowledge in Society. The American Economic Review 35(4), 519–530.Google Scholar
Hirstein, W., Sifferd, K., & Fagan, T. (2018). Responsible Brains: Neuroscience, Law, and Human Culpability. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Howells, G., Micklitz, H. W., & Wilhelmsson, T. (2016). European Fair Trading Law: The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jolls, C., Sunstein, C. R., & Thaler, R. (1998). A Behavioral Approach to Law and Economics. Stanford Law Review, 50, 1471–1550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, O. D., Schall, J. D., & Shen, F. X. (2014). Law and Neuroscience. New York: Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.Google Scholar
Kaplow, L., & Shavell, S. (2009). Fairness Versus Welfare. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Keynes, J. M. (1936). The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Knight, F. H. (2012). Risk, Uncertainty and Profit. North Chelmsford: Courier Corporation. (Reprint of the first edition, 1921.)Google Scholar
Kramer, A. D., Guillory, J. E. & Hancock, J. T. (2014). Experimental Evidence of Massive-Scale Emotional Contagion Through Social Networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(24), 8788–8790.Google Scholar
Kraus, J. S. (2002). Philosophy of Contract Law. In Coleman, Jules L., Einar Himma, Kenneth, & Shapiro, Scott J. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lanier, J. (2018). Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Rights Now. New York: Henry Holt and Company.Google Scholar
Leczykiewicz, D., & Weatherill, S. (eds.). (2016). The Images of the Consumer in EU Law: Legislation, Free Movement and Competition Law. Oxford: Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Lessig, L. (1999). The Law of the Horse: What Cyber Law Might Teach. Harvard Law Review 113, 501.Google Scholar
Libet, B. W. (1993). Neuronal vs. Subjective Timing for a Conscious Sensory Experience. In Neurophysiology of Consciousness: Contemporary Neuroscientists (Selected Papers of Leaders in Brain Research). Boston, MA: Birkhäuser, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-0355-1_8Google Scholar
Loos, M., & Luzak, J. (2016). Wanted: A Bigger Stick. On Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts With Online Service Providers. Journal of Consumer Policy 39(1), 63–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lustig, R. (2017). The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Luzak, J. A. (2014). To Withdraw or Not to Withdraw? Evaluation of the Mandatory Right of Withdrawal in Consumer Distance Selling Contracts Taking Into Account Its Behavioural Effects on Consumers. Journal of Consumer Policy 37(1), 91–111.Google Scholar
Mele, A. (2014). Free: Why Science Hasn’t Disproved Free Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Micklitz, H. W. (2009). The Visible Hand of European Regulatory Private Law – The Transformation of European Private Law from Autonomy to Functionalism in Competition and Regulation. Yearbook of European Law 28(1), 3-59.Google Scholar
Micklitz, H. W. (2018). The Politics of Behavioural Economics of Law. In Micklitz, H. W., Sibony, A. L., & Esposito, F. (eds.), Research Methods in Consumer Law: A Handbook. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Micklitz, H. W., Pałka, P., & Panagis, Y. (2017). The Empire Strikes Back: Digital Control of Unfair Terms of Online Services. Journal of Consumer Policy 40(3), 367–388.Google Scholar
Micklitz, H. W., Sibony, A. L., & Esposito, F. (eds.). (2018). Research Methods in Consumer Law: A Handbook. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.Google Scholar
Miller, M. K., & Bornstein, B. H. (2016). Advances in Psychology and Law. Cham: Springer.Google Scholar
Mik, E. (2016). The Erosion of Autonomy in Online Consumer Transactions. Law, Innovation & Technology 8(1), 1–38.Google Scholar
Mousourakis, G. (2015). Roman Law and the Origins of the Civil Law Tradition. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newman, J. M. (2019). Attention and the Law. SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3423487Google Scholar
Pałka, P. (2020). Data Management Law for the 2020s: The Lost Origins and the New Needs. Buffalo Law Review 68(2).Google Scholar
Pardo, M. S. & Patterson, D. M. (2013). Minds, Brains, and Law: The Conceptual Foundations of Law and Neuroscience. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Passera, S. (2015). Beyond the Wall of Text: How Information Design Can Make Contracts User-Friendly. In International Conference of Design, User Experience, and Usability. Cham: Springer, pp. 341–352.Google Scholar
Passingham, R. (2016). Cognitive Neuroscience: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Patterson, D. M., & Pardo, M. S. (2016). Philosophical Foundations of Law and Neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Posner, E. A., & Weyl, E. G. (2018). Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy For a Just Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Purtova, N. (2015). The Illusion of Personal Data as No One’s Property. Law, Innovation and Technology 7(1), 83–111.Google Scholar
Robbennolt, J. K., & Hans, V. P. (2016). The Psychology of Tort Law. In Miller, M. K. & Bornstein, B. H. (eds.), Advances in Psychology and Law, Vol. 1. Cham: Springer, pp. 249–274.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, M., Confessore, N., & Cadwalladr, C. (2018). How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions. New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump-campaign.htmlGoogle Scholar
Sales, B. D., & Krauss, D. A. (2015). The Psychology of Law: Human Behavior, Legal Institutions, and Law. Washington, DC: APA.Google Scholar
Sartor, G. (2006). Fundamental Legal Concepts: A Formal and Teleological Characterisation. Artificial Intelligence and Law 14(1–2), 101–142.Google Scholar
Shuman, D. W. (1994). The Psychology of Compensation in Tort Law. University of Kansas Law Review 43, 39.Google Scholar
Solove, D. J. (2013). Introduction: Privacy Self-Management and the Consent Dilemma. Harvard Law Review 126(7), 1880–1903.Google Scholar
Sunstein, C. R. (2000). Behavioral Law and Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thagard, P. (2018). Cognitive Science. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognitive-science/.Google Scholar
Thaler, R. (2016). Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Science 185(4157), 1124–1131.Google Scholar
Vaughn, L. B. (2012). Feeling at Home: Law, Cognitive Science, and Narrative. McGeorge Law Review 43, 999.Google Scholar
Williams, J. (2018). Stand Out Of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, O. E. (1989). Transaction Cost Economics. Handbook of Industrial Organization 1, 135–182.Google Scholar
Wu, T. (2017). The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Zamir, E., & Teichman, D. (2018). Behavioral Law and Economics. New York: University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zittrain, J. (2014). Facebook Could Decide an Election Without Anyone Ever Finding Out: the Scary Future of Digital Gerrymandering – and How to Prevent It. New Statesman America. www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/06/facebook-could-decide-election-without-anyone-ever-finding-outGoogle Scholar
Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: Profile Books.Google Scholar
- 1
- Cited by