Intuition as a Source of Legal Knowledge

Intuition as a Source of Legal Knowledge

Legal knowledge discovery is often depicted as a highly reflective process. However, I argue that intuitive judgements play an integral role in determining legal cases; they therefore represent an important source of legal knowledge. I begin by presenting two perspectives on the relationship between intuition and knowledge in legal decision-making—one inspired by depictions of skill in the classical Chinese Daoist text, the Zhuangzi, and the second drawing on contemporary work in social psychology. I then contend that legal intuitions have three salient characteristics with implications for how we understand the content of law. First, legal intuitions are foundational; they typically precede and therefore influence other legal knowledge discovery processes. Second, legal intuitions are holistic; they take account not only of the content of legal materials, but also of the natural, social and normative context for a legal decision. Third, legal intuitions are dynamic; they change over time as the law and its context changes. These features of legal intuitions entail a claim about legal knowledge which I call the explosion thesis. This thesis holds that there is no clear and consistent separation between legal and other forms of knowledge; all relevant propositions about the natural, social and normative world form part of the law.

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