Networked Worldview and Law

This paper critically examines the limitations of the modern legal paradigm in addressing pressing contemporary issues such as ecological crises and pandemics. It argues that these limitations stem from the mechanistic worldview underlying modern legal thought, which conceptualizes the world as a machine-like entity. However, contemporary challenges reveal the world to be an interconnected, organic whole, defying reduction to discrete parts. This paper conceptualizes this new understanding as a 'networked worldview' and advocates for a paradigm shift in legal theory to align with this perspective. Key features of this proposed legal paradigm include the recognition of individuals as relational subjects, the promotion of solidarity in freedom for the public good, the probabilistic and proportional assessment of illegality, the restoration of virtue and emotion in legal discourse, and the integration of legal pluralism and soft law. While these elements build on existing critiques within legal scholarship—such as ecological jurisprudence, postmodern legal theory, and neo-Aristotelian approaches—this paper reinterprets and synthesizes these ideas through the lens of the networked worldview. By doing so, it aims to establish a cohesive legal paradigm suited to the complexities of contemporary problems.