Theoretical Debates and Analysis of Legal Research Methods

Abstract

Legal research methods refer to a general term for disciplined and systematic procedures, approaches, means, techniques, and models used by researchers to acquire novel and reliable legal knowledge. Several theoretical debates on the originality of legal research methods go on as follows: Is one legal research method superior to another? Do legal research methods aim for methodological independence? Are legal research methods objective or subjective? Influenced by scientism, positivism is usually considered to be the only reasonable research method, but since law is different from science, only using positivist research approaches is insufficient for solving legal problems. Strictly speaking, a method that is appropriate for the research subject is a reasonable method. As one of the humanities and social sciences, law has similarities with other disciplines in terms of the scope of research; therefore, its research methods could be borrowed from other disciplines. However, law cannot ignore the development of its own unique research methods while retaining its advantages. Legal research methods are supposed to be objective because they should follow scientific standards and have objective arguments, but inevitably, legal research would be subjective and full of value judgments since it means subjective and creative activities of researchers. Of course, the choice of values should preferably be made in the context of value-freeness to ensure the organic combination of value-freeness and value judgment.

Keywords

legal research methods / positivist analysis / value analysis / value-freeness / value judgment

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