Scholars find that we have individual preferences and intuitions about what the law should be. And what we believe the law should be then influences what we think the law actually is. If we feel or think something is right, we tend to believe it is legal; and when we think something ought to be criminalized, we often assume it is illegal. Therefore, “knowledge” of the law has become a function of attitudes.18 This means that, just like deterrence, legal knowledge is subjective.
