ABSTRACT
All criminal codes, whether written or unwritten, are highly specialized dicta, having developed an internal logic of their own, often over centuries of evolution. According to Sorokin’s “ethicojuridical” theory (Sorokin, 1957), the normative content of the criminal law reflects the normative content of a culture, although the law may at times either lag or foreshadow changes in cultural patterns. However, it may be argued that many basic concepts of law, having their origins in early cultural history, but at the same time existing within a relatively autonomous linguistic framework (i.e. the accumulated body of argued cases) may develop according to their own logic, and therefore gaps may occur between some legal concepts or values and other normative components of culture.
