Legal Rules as a Bias-Counteracting Device

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that one of the key aspects of law’s conduct-guiding role is to serve as a corrective device against several systematic biases present in the settings of activity that law typically regulates. Following a few preliminary remarks (Section 1), I home in on the relevant problems of bounded rationality, drawing, inter alia, on empirical literature in psychology (Section 2). I highlight several systematic biases and explain how law is structurally suited to counteract some of their instantiations in social life. I discuss several doubts emerging from the fallibility of law and from the prospect of debiasing oneself of one’s own accord (Subsection 2.2. and Section 3). Finally , I consider some of the implications of my claim (Section 4).