Evidence-Based Jurisprudence. Methods and Epistemic Value of Empirical Legal Research, With Examples From Corporate Law

法律需要事实知识。为了在一个复杂和日益相互联系的社会中制定和应用一般规则，法律依赖于关于因果关系的可靠经验知识。迄今为止，德国法学家倾向于援引法律法规的“无定形经验饱和”作为可概括的“经验判断”的来源。本书认为，虽然丰富的轶事经验肯定是有用的，但它往往会使法学家误入歧途。因此，它继续询问法律科学和法律实践（法学）如何以系统和基于规则的方式适应经验见解，并有效地将其用于典型的法律问题。为了回答这个问题，这本书从其他必须与基础科学（尤其是医学）联系起来的实用学科中寻求灵感。通过解释医学实践中基于证据的决定，将其转移到法理学并将其整合为一个连贯的概念，本书首次将定量实证研究方法与法学家的规范认识论结合起来。它为适应实证研究结果制定了实用的经验法则，这有助于法学家欣赏个别研究并承认实证研究方法的局限性。从这一分析中得出的一个重要结论是，法学家应该减少对说明性初步研究的依赖，而应该依靠研究综合和元分析。这种适应实证结果的方法通过公司法的具体例子加以说明。在梳理了德国和美国的实证公司法研究现状后，本文通过一个与高管薪酬规则相关的问题，概述了不同的实证方法，并讨论了它们各自的潜力和局限性。该书最后对公司法中被称为“合议原则”的另一个主题进行了深入分析。这一原则是通过法律理论分析提出的，在20个司法管辖区的比较中进行了国际追溯，并最终使用“循证法学”的工具进行了分析。这一分析使人们对构成合议原则基础的关于人类决策行为的一些假设产生了怀疑。因此，基于证据的法理学可以被理解为一个跨学科的概念，它允许系统地规范对经验知识的追求，从而使其能够用于实际目的。它有助于自觉和批判性地反思法律与现实的关系，并从长远来看完善法律决策的基础。

Law requires factual knowledge. In order to set and apply general rules in a complex and increasingly interconnected society, the law depends on reliable empirical knowledge about causes and effects. Thus far, German jurists tend to invoke the ¿amorphous experiential saturation¿ of legal statutes as a source of generalizable ¿empirical judgments¿. The present book argues that while a wealth of anecdotal experience is certainly useful, it often leads jurists astray. It thus goes on to ask how legal science and legal practice (jurisprudence) can adapt empirical insights in a systematic and rule-based fashion, to use them productively for typical legal issues.To answer this question, the book seeks inspiration in other practical disciplines that had to bridge into basic science, turning especially to medicine. By explaining medicine¿s practice of ¿basing¿ decisions on evidence, transferring it to jurisprudence and integrating them into a coherent concept, the book for the first time aligns the methods of quantitative empirical research with jurists¿ normative epistemology. It develops practical rules of thumb for adapting empirical findings, which help jurists to appreciate individual studies and to acknowledge the limits of empirical research methodology. An important conclusion from this analysis is that jurists ought to rely less on illustrative primary studies, but instead on research syntheses and meta analyses.This method of adapting empirical findings is illustrated by specific examples from corporate law. After systematizing the state of empirical corporate law research in Germany and the US, one question relating to the rules on executive remuneration is used to outline different empirical approaches and to discuss their respective potentials and limits. The book concludes with an in-depth analysis of another subject known in corporate law as the ¿collegiality principle¿. This principle is laid out using legal doctrinal analysis, traced internationally in a comparison of twenty jurisdictions and eventually analysed using the instruments of ¿evidence-based jurisprudence¿. This analysis calls into doubt some of the as - sumptions about human decision-making behavior which underlie the collegiality principle.Evidence-based jurisprudence may therefore be understood as a transdisciplinary concept which allows systematically to discipline the quest for empirical knowledge, thus enabling its use for practical purposes. It helps to consciously and critically reflect on the law¿s relationship with reality, and to improve the bedrock of legal decision-making in the long run.