Aubert, Vilhelm (1922–1988)

Vilhelm Aubert, born in Oslo, was a Norwegian professor in sociology of law. Aubert came from a long line of Norwegian academics and senior civil servants. While studying law at the University of Oslo from 1940, he was active in the Norwegian resistance to the German occupation and in one of the circles that formed around the philosopher Arne Naess. After graduating in 1946, Aubert spent two years studying sociology in the United States. He became one of the leaders behind the 1950 foundation of the Institute for Social Research in Oslo, where he would do most of his research over the years.

In a 1952 study of the impact of the 1948 Norwegian Housemaid Act, Aubert and his coworkers found that while the law had certain symbolic implications, it had little effect on actual behavior. In 1954, he received a doctorate in sociology of law for a dissertation on the social function of punishment. In the study, Aubert applied the thinking of Robert Merton (1910–2003) on latent and manifest functions, arguing that the social functions of punishment are more latent than manifest. The same year he was appointed associate professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo. He was a professor of sociology of law from 1963.

In a 1965 collection of essays entitled The Hidden Society, he investigated with great creativity sociological aspects of topics such as sleep, love, predictability, [Page 106]and chance, drawing on his own experiences in the Norwegian resistance for a chapter on secrecy. During his tenure (1971–1988) as professor of sociology at the Faculty of Social Science, University of Oslo, Aubert published a major study on the social function of law, Rettens sosiale funksjon (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1976).

He was a highly esteemed public figure in Norway, and most of his work is accessible to the interested nonprofessional. Aubert wrote textbooks on sociology and sociology of law and did more to raise sociology into its status in Norwegian science and society than anyone else did. He was the doyen of Norwegian sociology. Stringent academic criteria combined with social relevance characterized his problem-oriented empiricism. In 1990, the Institute for Social Research and Department of Sociology, University of Oslo, instituted the annual Vilhelm Aubert Memorial Lecture, entrusting the first to Robert Merton. Many internationally renowned sociologists followed Merton.