Problem of the Incompatibility Between the Law and Psychology and the Use of Psychological Knowledge in the Law

Abstract

Any legal regulation addresses a human, directs his actions, defends him, tries to change his personality, to provide him with legal opportunities to achieve his aims. To be efficient the law needs extensive and valid knowledge on the human. Psychology is a discipline studying a human. Thus,the psychological knowledge should be intensively applied enhancing the efficiency of law. However, in reality the use of psychology in the law is only on its first primary stage and is far behind the progress of legal psychology, and many opportunity provided by psychology are not used in law. The paper focuses on the reasons of resistance of law against the use of psychology. Current explanations are reviewed. It is demonstrated that all these explanations have one common ground – the idea on very different nature of the law and psychology. This different nature is seen as the reason of their mutual incompatibility and of the resistance of law to any broader application of psychological knowledge in solving legal problems. The paper provides a critical analysis of the idea of incompatibility of the law and psychology. An alternative explanation for the same phenomenon is proposed. Key words: law, psychology, the use of psychology in legislation and administration of law, resistance of law against psychology.