From minds to law. Agent-based modeling and the interplay between cognition, society, and the legal world

The paper presents the computer simulation of social phenomena as a promising method to investigate the links tying human cognition, society and law. The focus is on agent-based modeling, a research methodology that is offering new ways to explore how the interaction between individuals (and the cognitive mechanisms governing their decisions) leads to the emergence and evolution of complex, macro-level social constructs from opinion dynamics to social norms. After a brief introduction to the theoretical and methodological framework underlying the proposal - a landscape shaped by cognitive sciences, complexity theory and computational social science - the paper delves into the basic features of agent-based simulations. It then explores the applications of this methodology in the study of legally relevant phenomena, like social norms emergence or the effects of sanctions. The review serves as an opportunity to reflect not only on the scientific and methodological frontiers of legal sociology but also on the perspectives of empirical evolution of legal science.