Bad-Man Theory Law and Legal Definition
Bad-man theory is a jurisprudential doctrine or belief, according to which a bad person's view of the law represents the best test of what exactly the law is because that person shall carefully and precisely calculate what the rules allow and operate up to the rules' limits. This theory is also known as prediction theory. This theory was first adopted by Oliver Wendell Holmes who mentioned that a society's legal system is defined by predicting how the law affects a person, as opposed to considering the ethics or morals underlying the law. Under this theory, the prediction is done by viewing the law in accordance with a bad man’s point of view who is not bothered about morals. Such a person is unconcerned with acting morally. Instead, such a person would be concerned about the degree of punishments certain acts will incur by the public force of law.
