Abstract

Although the connection of law, passion and emotion has become an established focus in legal scholarship, the extent to which emotion has always been, and continues to be, a significant influence in informing legal reasoning, decision-making, decision-avoidance and legal judgment – rather than an adjunct – is still a matter for critical analysis. Engaging with the underlying social context in which emotional states are a motivational force – and have produced key legal principles and controversial judgments, as evidenced in a range of illustrative legal cases – Law and the Passions: A Discrete History provides a uniquely inclusive commentary on the significance and influence of emotions in the history and continuing development of legal institutions and legal dogma. Law, it is argued, is a passion; and, as such, it is a primarily emotional endeavour.