Abstract

The legal philosopher HLA Hart theorised that what he referred to as the “internal point of view” was a critical component of law. While this thesis is widely accepted, it has not been rigorously empirically investigated. This chapter, linking the jurisprudential literature on the subject with advances in moral psychology and the behavioural, cognitive and affective sciences, deepens the inquiry into the question of what constitutes “the internal point of view”. Going beyond the standard accounts of a cost-benefit approach in law and economics and the abrogation to morality in the natural law tradition that trivialises psychological engagement, it presents a novel hypothesis about the mechanics of an individual agent acquiring it. In particular, while “buy in” to institutional systems, especially the law, has been thought of as a cognitive process, this chapter suggests that it is, perhaps, affective purchase that is critical, especially at an early stage of embedding these structures. It argues that this may be at the root of one of the central problems of law and society: legal transplantation, or the institutional chasm between the Global North and Global South that has defined the post–World War II era leading to the “rule of law” being considered almost an exclusive property of the nations of the advanced industrial West.