A Study Of Posner's Theory Of Justice And Efficiency

Richard A Posner is the most excellent and influential legal thinker of Jurisprudence of Economic since the seventies of the twentieth century.He applies the economic theory that people's acquiring an advantage from each other's voluntary trade and the principle of market economy related to economic efficiency to the legal system and law theoretical research, and lays the foundation of Economic Analysis of Law and contributes to the basic jurisprudence theory enormously. On the question of justice and efficiency, Posner bases his theory on pragmatism and thinks about it in the way of economic analysis. He said that ration exists not only in the market transaction, but also is a universal and dominant character of social action. The conception system, which used to explain the market action, also can explains those non-market actions. The economic norm of wealth maximization shows a basic theory for the ethics better than utilitarianism. And the basic laws should aim their central value to accelerate the economic efficiency, and carry out justice and equality in the procedure of seeking efficiency.The essay falls into three parts. The first part discusses the backgrounds, development and the basic theory in the way of economic and pragmatism, develops a theoretic frame for Posner's theory of justice and efficiency. Part two begins with Posner's critiques on the traditional justice of utilitarianism, and then discusses Posner's theory of justice and efficiency, that is taking the efficiency as a center, and carrying out justice and equality in the procedure of seeking efficiency. The last part gives some advices of how to combine Economic Analysis of Law and his theory of justice and efficiency to the judicial practice in China.