Rudolf von Jhering

(Caspar Rudolph von Ihering)

22 August 1818 17 September 1892

Rudolf von Jhering (Ihering) was born on August 22, 1818, in Aurich, Hanover, Germany. He
is a German legal scholar, sometimes called as the father of sociological jurisprudence. He
developed a philosophy of social utilitarianism that, in emphasizing the needs of society, differed
from the individualist approach of the English utilitarian philosophers Jeremy Bentham and Stuart
Mill.

Jhering taught Roman law at Giessen from 1852 to 1968, few years at Gttingen, and at four other
universities for briefer periods. In his most ambitious work, The Spirit of the Roman Law, he
elaborated the relation of law to social change. Even more influential in the 20th century was
his Law As a Means to an End, which maintained that the purpose of law was the protection of
individual and societal interests by coordinating them and thus minimizing occasions for conflict.
Where conflict was unavoidable, he assigned greater weight to societal interests, thereby inviting
the criticism that he subordinated the individual to society. His ideas were important to the
subsequent development of the jurisprudence of interests in Germany.

Core study

Social Utilitarianism the needs and purposes of society differs from the individualist approach

Laws Reunion of legal conceptions with social realities

His critique against individualistic utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill

First, individualism is narrow and limiting. Second, a legal rule does not only affect the individuals
own interest, it affects the societys interest. (e.g. father in prison)

3. Mill said, man should not be permitted to sell himself as a slave, since freedom is essential (e.g.
contract)

Similarities of Social and Individualistic Utilitarianism

Penetrate behind the verbal formulae of the law, to recognize the social realities behind them

Bentham reality as individual pleasures and pains

Jhering reality in individuals and society

What law is not

The standard of law is not the absolute, but the relative one of purpose.
There is no such thing as universal law any more than there is a universal medicine for all sick
people.

In other words, law is not the universal, but rather the useful.

Law of Purpose

While human beings further their individual purposes, men in their mutual relation would tend to
attach there own interest with the interest of others.

Law is the means whereby the organized purposes of society is achieved, individual purposes serving
as levers.

Since the conditions of social life are relative, so too is the law.

The correctness of this concept lies in the fact that all legal principles can be reduced, ultimately, to
conform to it.

It is not inconsistent for law to change, or contradict itself, as conditions change requiring changes in
law.

Law, then, is the sum of the conditions of social life in the widest sense of the term, as secured by
the power of the State through the means of external compulsion.

Law binds the individual to contribute to society:

In taxes (money)

In service (military service, jury duty)

In Property (limitations)

Critique against Jherings Theory

1. He built his system upon an assumed egocentric individual. There is no absolute demarcation
between individual purposes and social purposes.

2. Did not provide a criterion for justice at all. He only says, individuals must give way to the social
purposes.

3. It remains as an inaccessible mystery to the end. a scholastic who never got to his point.