PetrażYcki, Leon (1867–1931)

Leon Petrażycki was born in Witebsk, a province of Poland that was then under Russian rule. Petrażycki was an undergraduate at Kiev University and later moved to Berlin to pursue graduate work. He became professor of jurisprudence at the University of Warsaw, a post he held from 1897 to 1931.

To develop better legal theory and practice, Petrażycki examined the intricate interplay between law and society by embracing sociological concepts. He won acclaim by developing a unique theoretical model that included social policy, philosophy, psychology, sociology of law, and human morality. Petrażycki's primary works were published in Russian; a limited selection was translated into English for American audiences.

Petrażycki, a refined Darwinian, used trends that incorporated a variation of social engineering. He combined behaviorism and legal theory to facilitate altruistic actions in government and jurisprudence. His theory included classical conditioning and applied learning and Sigmund Freud's (1856–1939) notion of the force and power of human drives and impulses. He advocated the use of empiricism to document and to substantiate legal norms. Petrażycki believed that norms of law should be just and rational, and thus provided a framework that encouraged the rational perfection in humans. However, he tempered his idealism by recognizing human imperfections. The framework of his idealism began with encouraging the good in individuals and society, thus he viewed the benevolence of people as the primary goal. He suggested that moral monism conflicts with the more practical rigors and challenges associated with complex political and social systems in the United States. He encouraged moral education through the marriage of law and science.

Petrażycki's sociology promoted ethics in human interactions. He constructed and implemented legal doctrine in formal settings to educate and enlighten humanity. His theories evolved during the same period that Karl Marx (1818–1883), Max Weber (1864–1920), and Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) were developing legal theory. He considered the ideology of sociological jurisprudence as it related to the study of law and society in comparison with the Austrian Eugen Ehrlich (1862–1922). Both Petrażycki and Ehrlich used social sciences to improve the science of law. Social engineering was a critical lens from which he attempted to understand and facilitate human benevolence for purposes of promoting social-oriented policy makers.

Petrażycki and Ehrlich, though working independently, developed similar views with regard to jurisprudence; both theories involved complex, evolved states of human experience and consciousness. Petrażycki contended that jurists needed to determine laws by the sphere of human existence and wisdom, not by the limited interpretations and enforcement of contemporary positive legal theory. To that end, he recognized the constraints of the system and sought to transform the mentality of lawmakers to create a legal movement that more accurately evaluated human goodness. Jan Górecki (1923–1999) highlighted Leon Petrażycki's work from the perspective of symbolic interactionism, the structural-functional theory of society, legal realism, and postrealist jurisprudence.