Fred Kort

Developments in the Ethology of Law

In a development parallel to the emergence of the biobehavioral orientation in political science, the ethology of law has become a prominent endeavor in the past ten years. That it is indeed a biobehavioral approach is a fact that received a cogent reminder at the Fifth International Conference on Human Ethology in Tutzing, West Germany, in 1986. In a major address at the conference, Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt defined human ethology as the biology of human behavior. Correspondingly, Wolfgang Fikentscher and Hagen Hof, in their respective presentations at the session on the ethology of law at the conference, emphasized that law is a particular form of human behavior, making it clear that the biobehavioral context for the study of law is imperative.