Judicial Intuition and the Subconscious Judge: A Neurolaw Perspective on Indian Judicial Reasoning

Kashmeera Nousheer

doi:10.36948/ijfmr.2025.v07i05.58546

Judicial Intuition and the Subconscious Judge: A Neurolaw Perspective on Indian Judicial Reasoning

Author(s)	Ms. Kashmeera Nousheer
Country	India
Abstract	Traditionally framed as a process in logic and doctrinal consistency, legal reasoning is now seen to be influenced by affective and unconscious aspects of human thought. The historical split between rational adjudication and intuitive judgement the constructs of Benjamin Cardozo and Jerome Frank has new relevance in neurolaw, which approaches legal reasoning in the scaffolding of the brain. This article examines the place of intuition, emotion, and unconscious thought in judicial decision-making in India, where adjudication often conflates normative legality with moral sensibility. Using cognitive neuroscience and dual-process theories of reasoning, this paper demonstrates the ways that implicit biases, moral intuition, and the act of feeling sympathy with a party work in conjunction with the formalism of legal reasoning to specify particular outcomes that frequently seem "rationally" defensible, but are often predisposed at an unconscious level. This paper argues that a micro-level critique of laws, like these landmark cases, suggests a deeper insight into our understanding of judicial judgment. Cases like Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, and Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India exhibit how legal discourse, and ultimately legal reasoning, often masks affective judgments articulated in the language of constitutional morality and social justice. The article builds a neurolaw-informed model for viewing the Indian judge, who is thought of as both a conscious interpreter and a subconscious moral agent. In advancing the argument, the article brings together insights from neuroscience, jurisprudence, and psychology, positing that a legal decision-maker’s understanding of the cognitive architecture to judicial intuition allows us to develop a better grasp of adjudicative behavior, promote cognitive accountability, and build a more self-aware judiciary with ethical concerns in India.
Keywords	Judicial reasoning, intuition, subconscious cognition, neurolaw, Indian judiciary, cognitive bias, moral judgment, neuro-jurisprudence.
Field	Sociology > Administration / Law / Management
Published In	Volume 7, Issue 5, September-October 2025
Published On	2025-10-21
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2025.v07i05.58546

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Judicial Intuition and the Subconscious Judge: A Neurolaw Perspective on Indian Judicial Reasoning

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