What Is Functionalism?

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What is functionalism?

It is the doctrine that what


makes a thought, desire, pain (or
any other type of mental state)
depends
not
on
its
internal
constitution, but solely on its
function, or the role it plays, in the
cognitive system of which it is a
part. More precisely, functionalist
theories take the identity of a
mental state to be determined by its
casual
relations
to
sensory
stimulations, other mental states,
and behavior.
For (an avowedly simplistic)
example, a functionalist theory
might characterize pain as a state
that tends to be caused by bodily
injury, to produce the belief that
something is wrong with the body
and the desire to be out of that
state, to produce anxiety, and, in
the absence of any stronger,
conflicting desires, to cause wincing
or moaning. According to this
theory, all and only creatures with
internal states that meet these
conditions, or play these roles, are
capable of being in pain.
Functionalism is a method.
It is a method which says that
to understand something it must be
observed in action as it operates
as it works as it functions. It is a
method common to the American
instumentalism of Dewee and the
English legal positivism of Ayer. It
was exemplified in the 1930s by
Boas in anthropology, Weber in
sociology, Laski (with whom Holmes
constantly corresponded) in Political
Science.

Functional jurisprudence flows


precisely from the refusal to take at
face value the rules and concepts,
the statutes and judicial decisions.
Consider the case of the statute on
the books. Its words may not at all
resemble the way it is working in
practice. It may be a dead letter law,
It may have been (and probably
was) interpreted.
Early antecedents
The earliest view that can be
considered
an
ancestor
of
functionalism is Aristotles theory of
the soul (350 BCE). In contrast to
Platos claim that the soul can exist
apart from the body, Aristotle
argued (De Anima Bk II, Ch 1) that
the (human) soul is the form of a
natural, organized human body the
set of powers or capacities that
enable it to express its essential
whatness, which for Aristotle is a
matter of fulfilling the function or
purpose that defines it as the kind of
thing it is. Just as the form of an axe
is whatever enables it to cut, and
the form of an eye is whatever
enables it to see, the (human) soul
is to be identified with whichever
powers and capacities enable a
natural, organized human body to
fulfill its defining function, which,
according to Aristotle, is to survive
and flourish as a living, acting,
perceiving, and reasoning being.
A second, relatively early,
ancestor
of
contemporary
functionalism is Hobbes (1651)
account of reasoning as a kind of
computation that proceeds by
mechanistic principles comparable

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.

Marxist social theory relies


heavily on functionalist explanation
in general, and so it is not surprising
that many Marxist explanations of
law are functionalist in nature. The
law is such and such, because the
rule serves the interest of the
capitalist
class.
Feudal
law
governing rights in land gave way to
modern property law with free
alienability, because the change was
required by the transition from the
feudal mode of production to the
capitalist mode of production.

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

Functionalist explanations are


frequently invoked in positive legal
theory. That is, when we ask the
question, Why does the law have
such and such content?, then
answer frequently is, Because such
and such a rule functions in thus and
so way. Here are some examples:
Marxist Explanation of Law

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

whereas efficient legal rules, once


adopted,
tend
to
facilitate
settlement of disputes.
The
Place
for
Methodology

Functionalist

Les Green has canvassed


functional
thinking
in
legal
philosophy,
understanding
the
function of something to be the
consequences it has that explain its
presence or what is supposed to do.
A
functional
explanation
of
something is therefore one that
involves some notion of causal
consequences
as
helping
to
understand the nature or existence
of the thing explained. Since the
consequences
can
simply
be
expected
in
the
case
of
understanding something by what it
is supposed to do, the explanation
does not necessarily entail a claim
that the thing being explained must
successfully
cause
the
consequences.
Legal functionalism for its part
asks questions like: How do legal
rules
work?
What
are
the
consequences of a legal rule? What
social institutions lead some legal
rules to be more effective than
others? Are legal rules given
ritualistic lip service by judges with
little relation to the actual grounds
of the decision? When we ask
questions like these, we are asking
questions which were not asked by
the natural law school concerned
with how law developed, or the
analytical school concerned with the
structure lo law. The functionalist
asks new questions. In summary,
the functionalist asks: What is the

human meaning of the law? This


question is simply a departure from
prior schools of jurisprudence; it is
not a question which preempts other
questions or denigrates other lines
of inquiry. The historical, analytical,
and moral lines of inquiry are all
interrelated with the new functional
line of law-in-action. They are all
interdependent. The functional
approach has no pretension to
substitute
for
these
other
approaches, but wishes only to
supplement or augment them by
focusing attention and inquiry
beyond the legal rules to the law-inaction how the law works, what its
human social science consequences
are. No functionalist can function
without also availing himself of the
tools of analytical jurisprudence and
of the light thrown by historical
succession. But in passing moral
judgment on law, functionalists
believe that one must first have an
honest description of how it works,
how a legal rule (which is a
perspective formula) functions in its
human-sociological consequences.
Because one must be able to find
ones way through all possible
consequences,
criteria
of
importance
must
be
selective
invoked. Here the needed inquiry
must be an inquiry into value
theory, and after a fine contribution
in that direction has been made by
Abraham Edel.

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)

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