Legal authority to judge intent is a form of social control

Evidence

Michelle Rosaldo (1982), Marilyn Strathern (1988), and other anthropologists have suggested that perceiving action as the externalization of intentions by active human agents is a key facet of the Western imagination. We might add that the right to discover, classify, and judge intentions, as invested in many legal systems, is a crucial means of exerting social and political control. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 264 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Legal control over government officials reverses but extends social control. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 93; Judging intentions is a culturally specific instrument of social control — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 264

Broader Connections

• Judging intentions is a culturally specific instrument of social control #expands (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 264