Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory

Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory PDF

Author: Neil MacCormick

Publisher: Clarendon Press

Published: 1994-08-11

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0191018597

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

What makes an argument in a law case good or bad? Can legal decisions be justified by purely rational argument or are they ultimately determined by more subjective influences? These questions are central to the study of jurisprudence, and are thoroughly and critically examined in Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory, now with a new and up-to-date foreword. Its clarity of explanation and argument make this classic legal text readily accessible to lawyers, philosophers, and any general reader interested in legal processes, human reasoning, or practical logic.

Legal Reasoning

Legal Reasoning PDF

Author: Melvin A. Eisenberg

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-09-29

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1009192760

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The common law, which is made by courts, consists of rules that govern relations between individuals, such as torts (the law of private wrongs) and contracts. Legal Reasoning explains and analyzes the modes of reasoning utilized by the courts in making and applying common law rules. These modes include reasoning from binding precedents (prior cases that are binding on the deciding court); reasoning from authoritative although not binding sources, such as leading treatises; reasoning from analogy; reasoning from propositions of morality, policy, and experience; making exceptions; drawing distinctions; and overruling. The book further examines and explains the roles of logic, deduction, and good judgment in legal reasoning. With accessible prose and full descriptions of illustrative cases, this book is a valuable resource for anyone who wishes to get a hands-on grasp of legal reasoning.

On Law and Legal Reasoning

On Law and Legal Reasoning PDF

Author: Fernando Atria

Publisher: Hart Publishing

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book seeks to examine the relations that obtain between law and a theory of law and legal reasoning and a theory of legal reasoning.

On Law and Legal Reasoning

On Law and Legal Reasoning PDF

Author: Fernando Atria

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2002-08-07

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1847316328

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book is about legal theory and legal reasoning. In particular,it seeks to examine the relations that obtain between law and a theory of law and legal reasoning and a theory of legal reasoning. Two features of law and legal reasoning are treated as being of particular importance in this regard: law is institutional, and legal reasoning is formal. These two features are so closely connected that it is reasonable to believe that in fact they are simply two ways of looking at the same issue. This becomes clearer as the focus of the book shifts from the institutional nature of law to the consequences of this for legal reasoning, and which is the principal focus of the book. The author received the European Academy of Legal Theory award in 2000 for the doctoral dissertation on which this work was based.

Methods of Legal Reasoning

Methods of Legal Reasoning PDF

Author: Jerzy Stelmach

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-09-03

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1402049390

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Methods of Legal Reasoning describes and criticizes four methods used in legal practice, legal dogmatics and legal theory: logic, analysis, argumentation and hermeneutics. The book takes the unusual approach of discussing in a single study four different, sometimes competing concepts of legal method. Sketched this way, the panorama allows the reader to reflect deeply on questions concerning the methodological conditioning of legal science and the existence of a unique, specific legal method.

Demystifying Legal Reasoning

Demystifying Legal Reasoning PDF

Author: Larry Alexander

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-06-16

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 113947247X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Demystifying Legal Reasoning defends the proposition that there are no special forms of reasoning peculiar to law. Legal decision makers engage in the same modes of reasoning that all actors use in deciding what to do: open-ended moral reasoning, empirical reasoning, and deduction from authoritative rules. This book addresses common law reasoning when prior judicial decisions determine the law, and interpretation of texts. In both areas, the popular view that legal decision makers practise special forms of reasoning is false.

Objectivity in Law and Legal Reasoning

Objectivity in Law and Legal Reasoning PDF

Author: Jaakko Husa

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2013-01-28

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 1782250689

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Legal theorists consider their discipline as an objective endeavour in line with other fields of science. Objectivity in science is generally regarded as a fundamental condition, informing how science should be practised and how truths may be found. Objective scientists venture to uncover empirical truths about the world and ought to eliminate personal biases, prior commitments and emotional involvement. However, legal theorists are inevitably bound up with a given legal culture. Consequently, their scholarly work derives at least in part from this environment and their subtle interaction with it. This book questions critically, in novel ways and from various perspectives, the possibilities of objectivity of legal theory in the twenty-first century. It transpires that legal theory is unavoidably confronted with varying conceptions of law, underlying ideologies, approaches to legal method, argumentation and discourse etc, which limit the possibilities of 'objectivity' in law and in legal reasoning. The authors of this book reveal some of these underlying notions and discuss their consequences for legal theory.

Rhetoric and The Rule of Law

Rhetoric and The Rule of Law PDF

Author: Neil MacCormick

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2005-07-28

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0191018783

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Is legal reasoning rationally persuasive, working within a discernible structure and using recognisable kinds of arguments? Does it belong to rhetoric in this sense, or to the domain of the merely 'rhetorical' in an adversative sense? Is there any reasonable certainty about legal outcomes in dispute-situations? If not, what becomes of the Rule of Law? Neil MacCormick's book tackles these questions in establishing an overall theory of legal reasoning which shows the essential part 'legal syllogism' plays in reasoning aimed at the application of law, while acknowledging that simple deductive reasoning, though always necessary, is very rarely sufficient to justify a decision. There are always problems of relevancy, classification or interpretation in relation to both facts and law. In justifying conclusions about such problems, reasoning has to be universalistic and yet fully sensitive to the particulars of specific cases. How is this possible? Is legal justification at this level consequentialist in character or principled and right-based? Both normative coherence and narrative coherence have a part to play in justification, and in accounting for the validity of arguments by analogy. Looking at such long-discussed subjects as precedent and analogy and the interpretative character of the reasoning involved, Neil MacCormick expands upon his celebrated Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory (OUP 1978 and 1994) and restates his 'institutional theory of law'.

The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning

The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning PDF

Author: Keith J. Holyoak

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-04-18

Total Pages: 880

ISBN-13: 9780521824170

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning is the first comprehensive and authoritative handbook covering all the core topics of the field of thinking and reasoning. Written by the foremost experts from cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience, individual chapters summarize basic concepts and findings for a major topic, sketch its history, and give a sense of the directions in which research is currently heading. The volume also includes work related to developmental, social and clinical psychology, philosophy, economics, artificial intelligence, linguistics, education, law, and medicine. Scholars and students in all these fields and others will find this to be a valuable collection.