What Is Functionalism?
What Is Functionalism?
What Is Functionalism?
to
the
rules
of
arithmetic.
Reasoning, he argues, is nothing
but reckoning, that is adding and
subtracting, of the consequences of
general names agreed upon for the
marketing and signifying of our
thoughts. (Leviathan, Ch. 5). In
addition, Hobbes suggests that
reasoning along with imagining,
sensing, and deliberating about
action,
all
of
which
proceed
according to mechanistic principles
can be performed by systems of
various physical types. As he puts in
his Introduction to Leviathan, where
he likes a commonwealth to an
individual human, why may we not
say that all automata (engines that
move themselves by springs and
wheels) have an artificial life? For
what is the heart but a spring; and
the nerves but so many strings, and
the joints but so many wheels. It
was not until the middle of the 20 th
century, however, that it became
common to speculate that thinking
may be nothing more than rulegoverned computation that can be
carried out by creatures of various
physical types.
Functionalist
Legal Theory
Another
example
of
functionalist explanation in legal
theory is the claim that the common
law rules are efficient. Why did the
common law adopt the Learned
Hand formula as the standard for
negligence? Because that is the
efficient
standard.
Sometimes
these claims are accompanied by an
account of the mechanism by which
a common law system moves
towards efficient legal rules. For
example, it might be argued that
inefficient legal rules will be subject
to continuous litigation pressure;
Explanations
in
Legal Evolution
Functionalist explanations are
also implicit in any claim that the
law evolves (where evolves is
meant in a technical sense and is
not a mere synonym for changes).
The idea that legal systems evolve is
very common, but there is not
general theory of legal evolution
that has the well-confirmed status of
the
corresponding
theory
of
biological evolution.
Efficiency
Functionalist
Sources:
1. http://plato.stanford.edu/entrie
s/functionalism/
2. http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/del
ivery.php?
ID=285088095002027126082
074067078109091033020039
072045089028086122023100
118077118083075049063097
015112023016029073097000
093091116111059011078059
087092093001125117001081
012095121089069091001014
023103111110023094001073
091093087107111121116105
118126027105&EXT=pdf
3. Anglo-American Philosophy of
Law: An Introduction to its
Development and Outcome
(by Beryl Harold Nevy)