DHARMASHASTRA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

JURISPRUDENCE

LAW AS A QUALITATIVE DISCIPLINE AS OPPOSED TO A QUANTITATIVE

Submitted To: Submitted By:

Mr. Manwendra Kumar Tiwari Lav Vyas

(Associate Professor of Law) Bal/052/2018

Ms. Drishti Singh

(Research-cum-Teaching assistant)
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to our Vice Chancellor Mr. Balraj
Singh Chauhan, our HOD Mr. VS Gigimon as well as our subject teacher Mr. Manwendra
Kumar Tiwari and Ms. Drishti Singh who gave me the golden opportunity to do this
wonderful project on the topic Law as a qualitative discipline as opposed to a quantitative
one which helped me in doing a lot of Research and I came to know about so many new
things. I am really thankful to them.

Secondly I would also like to thank my colleagues and partners in this project who helped in
finalizing this project within this frame.

Date: 22/01/2020 -Lav Vyas Signature

1
 INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 1

INDEX 2

Introduction 3

Analysis 4

Conclusion 7

2
 INTRODUCTION

Quantitative discipline is the subject in which you have to solve problems from a
mathematical/ statistical perspective. Whereas Qualitative discipline is the subject where you
have to collect data using observation and non-numerical data. It may vary with the
disciplinary background, such as psychologist seeking in-depth understanding of Human
behavior. From this we can interpret that one says Law as a philosophy while one says law as
a science. One says that law is formula which can be applied as it is in the society while the
other says law changes as society changes. According to Roscoe Pound Law must be stable
and yet it cannot stand still. Hence all thinking about law has struggled to reconcile the
conflicting demands of the need of stability and the need of change. Some say Law as a
Quantitative discipline while some say law as Qualitative discipline. The opportunity to
assess the quality of judgments is based on the assumption that we have a clear set of criteria
to qualify them, or as a weaker demand at least we have a protocol which is designed to
ensure a proper procedure for concluding a correct judgment. Theoretically, such a set of
criteria or protocol, according to the nature of judicial process, in the fields of fact finding,
interpretation of rules and legal reasoning could be established. This paper concentrates on
the latter two fields. The effort to measure the quality of judgments suggests that it is possible
to work in this area with scientific precision or at least with bureaucratic accuracy. It would
perhaps be practically impossible to secure for any definition of the term Jurisprudence any
very general acceptance. It is doubtful whether there exists even any general agreement as to
what subjects are within its scope. The problem of whether, and in what sense, it is to be
considered philosophy or science cannot, however, be discussed without adopting at least
some tentative notion of its meaning that shall serve as the basis for the discussion. This can
be more effectively done by a general description of the types of problem usually dealt with
in treatises and courses on Jurisprudence than by framing a logically correct definition that
secured accuracy and completeness by resort to a convenient vagueness. Investigation
discloses its use to denote lines of inquiry having little in common other than a professed
interest in general questions and problems concerning law and justice. It denotes in any case
a broader approach to law than is implied in the mere effort to give a succinct or even
scientific statement of its rules.

3
 ANALYSIS

Law is the reflection of the will and wish of the society. It is said that if you want to study
any society then you need to see the laws enacted by the society and you come to know
whether the society is a developed one or a wild world. The law, though it is the product of
the society is responsible for the social \transformations. In fact, there are two modes of this
aspect. First is, “Law changing the society”, which means that the law of the land compels
the society to be changed according to it. And secondly is. “Society changes the law”, as per
its needs. It needs. It means law is made by the society according to its requirement by its
democratic institution i.e. Legislative or by adopting custom and usage. When law changes
the society it is the sign of beginning of the development of the society. When society
changes law it is the sign of maturity of the society. We can cite the enthusiasm of the people
in the matter of ‘Nirbhaya’ where the commonest of the common was talking on how the law
must be, what must be the punishment etc. here this compelled the government to consider
the sentiments of the society and set up a commission to give suggestions and untimely the
criminal law amendment bill came into existence. According to Green Arnold “Law is more
or less systematic body of generalize rules. Balanced between the fiction of performance and
the of change, governing specifically defined relationship and situations and employing force
or the threat of force in defined and limited ways”. At the beginning of industrialization and
urbanization in Europe, Bentham expected legal reforms to respond quickly to new social
needs and to restructure society. He freely gave advice to the leaders of the French
revolution, because he believed that countries at a similar stage of economic development
needed similar remedies for their common problems. However, Savigny believed that only
fully developed popular customs could form the basis of legal change. When mahatma
Phule’s wife Savitribai Phule actually started teaching in a school aimed only for girls it was
considered taboo, something not good and would be affecting the society but this movement
gradually became the source of law where the girls could actually study and develop.
Gradually the then society thought reluctantly adopted this fact and started to send girls to
school this is positive sign of beginning of the development of the society. Ultimately the
girls got into colleges also. This was not only limited to the Hindu society, finally the Aligarh
Muslim college also had some seats for female students studying. But no dough the lamp was
lighted by the phule couple. This is the ‘Society changes the law’, But per its need, rather
demands. Whereas the law plays an important role in changing the society too.

4
In a broad theoretical framework, social change has been slow enough to make custom the
principal source of law. Law could respond to social change over decades or even centuries.
Today the tempo of social change accelerated to a point where today’s assumptions may not
be valid even in a few years from now. The emergence of new risks to the individual as a
result of the decrease of the various family functions, including the protective function, has
led to the creation of legal innovations to protect the individuals in modern society. Eg
provisions of workers compensation, unemployment insurance, old-age pensions. Many
sociologists and legal scholars assert on the basis of a large amount of accumulated data that
technology is one of the great moving forces for change in law in three ways. The computer
and easy access to cyberspace, especially internet, also have inspired legislation on both the
federal and the state levels to safeguard privacy, protects against abuse of credit information
and computer crime. Change in law may be induced by a voluntary and gradual shift in
community values and attitudes. [eg. People may think that poverty is bad, and laws should
be created to reduce it in some way.] Alternations in social conditions, technology knowledge
values, and attitudes then may induce legal change. In such cases law is reactive and follows
social change. However, changes in law are only one of many responses to social change.
Additionally, laws can be considered both as reactive and proactive in social change. The
cause and effect relationship between law and change is very difficult to identify because the
ability of law to produce change is probabilistic, contingent and sequential because even
though some changes can occur, other factors such as the morality and values of society
affect the efficacy and time lag of laws in causing change. On certain issues like truth,
individual liberty, etc., a shared morality and shared values are essential to unify the society.
However, not all values are essential and those should be able to change. To cause change, a
law should be supported by the society. Its efficacy in change is limited on moral issues in
society. Examples are the ineffectiveness of laws prohibiting adultery, homosexual marriage
or sexual abuse. The laws prohibiting many drugs, especially marijuana, have been called the
“new prohibition” to underline similarity with laws prohibiting alcohol usage. It seems that
laws on important drives are more difficult to apply than those on less compelling drives.
Marijuana is seen a source of pleasure for many people therefore control should be imposed
only against polluted merchandise. Morris Grinsberg suggests that laws should deal only with
acts that can be precisely defined and with external observable acts; and the laws should as
far as possible respect privacy.

5
If witness, lawyer, trial judge or jury, and appellate judge have different conceptions as to the
facts in a case, how can there be any agreement as to applicable legal principle, assuming
there to be such? Principle can have no existence apart from facts. It has meaning only if tied
up with concrete phenomena. But if people have different mental pictures as to the external
phenomena correspondingly will the meaning of a principle vary from person to person? But
a principle is a principle. Only in so far as it is to some extent general and compelling as it is
carried from one group of facts to another, and used by one person and then another, thereby
creating uniformity in application. There can be no uniformity and therefore no principle
where mental pictures differ as to the facts to which the principle is to apply. For this reason
principles, if they may be called such, overlap and conflict. They are not mutually exclusive.
Where there is overlapping or where two conflicting principles seem equally applicable, what
is to be the result? The supposed traditional method of a court's reasoning is that the judge
first discovers a general principle which covers the case in hand. Then, using this as a major
premise and the particular case as a minor premise, the decision is deduced. But that this is
not really what a court does may be illustrated as follows: It is a principle of law that in the
absence of fraud or coercion persons of full age and of sound mind are free to contract and
manage their business in their own way. Another, principle is that unfair competition is
unlawful. Suppose X, a manufacturer, sells his commodities (say radios) to B and other
retailers throughout the country and requires each of them to agree (i. e., contract) not to
handle the radios of Y, or any other of X's competitors. Y complains that X's conduct is
harmful to Y's business. Now if a judge wants to reach one result he may state his syllogism
in this way: "In the absence of fraud or coercion people of full age and of sound mind are free
to contract and manage their own business in their own way”.

6
 CONCLUSION

From the above we can conclude that Law is a Qualitative discipline as opposed to a
Quantitative discipline. It is that we cannot have specific formulas and methods in Law. Law
changes from society to society. What maybe a crime in one place might not be in other. It is
because of the psychological factor, the social factor, the moral factor of the people. We see
that in USA few states have legalized marijuana while in some states it is still a crime. While
it is completely legal in Florida to buy rifles but in other states it is not. If we see in India also
there are few states such as Gujarat, Bihar which have declared themselves as dry state while
other state have legalized liquor. This is all because of the factors. We cannot apply every
law as it is in every society each society is different from itself and laws are to be made
accordingly and applied accordingly. Law is an art and art cannot be same for every person.
Every person have different skills and thinking which makes it unique. If we see law as
science then we see that laws are same for the whole world which is not possible because
there are countries which are still developing while there are developed countries now both
cannot have the same laws as it may cause a barrier for the still developing nations. Laws of
science are fact and that's why they have fixed principles which are universal in nature but
law as science is rather a thought and thought differ from person to person and cannot be
universal in nature. Therefore we can say that law is a qualitative discipline as opposed to a
quantitative discipline.