The impact of economic analysis of law on legal thinking

The article deals with the main provisions of Richard Posner’s book “How judges think”, which is, according to the author’s own assessment, an attempt by an American scientist to understand the motives that guide judges in making judgments. The emphasis Posner puts on psychology leads to the fact that the book gives the right to talk about how judges think, not about judicial behavior: considering traits, temperament, race and gender, as well as personal and professional experience. From all the above Richard Posner concludes that judges are guided by the rationality of actions and decisions. Therefore, special attention in this article is paid to the concept of rationality from the point of view of Posner himself, as well as the assessment of this concept from the point of view of Russian scientists V.L. Tambovtsev and L.V. Smorgunov, since this concept of rational choice reveals the essence of economic analysis of law. Special attention should be paid to the argument that according to Richard Posner, rational choice does not have to be without error in the conditions of lack of information or the complexity of its collection and analysis. The arguments of Henry Beckett, as one of the founders of the economic analysis of law, on rationality in the Commission of an offense are given. Also, the article considers the facts that allow to state that at present the economic analysis of the law has gone far beyond the initial attention to Antimonopoly regulation, taxation, regulation of public utilities, corporate Finance and other usual areas of economic regulation, the range of issues that can be resolved through economic analysis of the law is much wider and more diverse. According to the results of races-judgements and the estimation of economic analysis of law and the category of rationality in the legal field.