Reductionism and the Analysis of Institutions

Abstract

In the preceding two chapters I have argued for a position called ‘legal reductionism’. Law can be reduced to facts and can, at least partly, be explained in terms of positive morality. I shall argue that this form of legal positivism fits within the institutional theory of law. Since MacCormick and Weinberger themselves suggest that their institutional theory of law is not reductionist, it should be made clear what the reductionism of legal reductionism exactly amounts to, and that is what I set out to do in this and the next chapter. In this chapter I shall address the more general question of the possibility of a reductionist approach to the analysis of institutions. Game theory can be seen as a paradigmatic example of a reductionist approach. Since I shall develop a game-theoretic analysis of rights and legal systems, I shall argue that the reductionism of game theory is suitable for an institutional analysis. To do so, I first discuss the meaning of the terms ‘methodological individualism’ and ‘reductionism’. After having made clear what I understand by these terms, I describe some of the essentials of game theory.