Rational Foundations of Criminal Proceedings: A View through the Prism of Sociological Considerations

The paper examines the rational foundations of law typified by criminal proceedings. In search of the origins of the rationalistic picture of law, the author, in the course of analyzing the actions of subjects (participants) of criminal proceedings in certain situations, shows the correspondence of criminal proceedings to the rationalistic system of M. Weber, which allows rationalizing in the legal plane the values dominant in society. Law, being a social institution, in the author’s opinion, should be subject to the laws of social life revealed by other disciplines, in particular sociology. Using an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the institutions of criminal justice will allow us to study them in their integrity and discover their new facets. Following this position, the author attempted to analyze the institution of a pre-trial agreement on cooperation through the prism of the theory of rational choice and the teachings of P. Sorokin about crimes and exploits, which made it possible to outline a path for further improvement of this institution, which would correspond to the laws of social development.