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Discovering The Logic of Legal Reasoning

Legal reasoning involves interpreting laws, balancing principles, adopting and modifying rules, and applying rules to make decisions based on evidence. It aims to be transparent, open to scrutiny, and based on objective rationales rather than subjective preferences. Legal reasoning is pragmatic in that it is action-oriented, balances epistemic and non-epistemic objectives, and uses limited resources to make decisions based on incomplete information in a timely manner. It employs rule-based reasoning using conditional propositions and evaluates evidence using implication trees and plausibility schemas to prove or disprove legal rules and evidentiary assertions. It also involves second-order process reasoning about adopting, modifying, or rescinding legal rules and precedents to decide similar cases similarly over time.

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Vina Angelina Peṅaserada
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217 views3 pages

Discovering The Logic of Legal Reasoning

Legal reasoning involves interpreting laws, balancing principles, adopting and modifying rules, and applying rules to make decisions based on evidence. It aims to be transparent, open to scrutiny, and based on objective rationales rather than subjective preferences. Legal reasoning is pragmatic in that it is action-oriented, balances epistemic and non-epistemic objectives, and uses limited resources to make decisions based on incomplete information in a timely manner. It employs rule-based reasoning using conditional propositions and evaluates evidence using implication trees and plausibility schemas to prove or disprove legal rules and evidentiary assertions. It also involves second-order process reasoning about adopting, modifying, or rescinding legal rules and precedents to decide similar cases similarly over time.

Uploaded by

Vina Angelina Peṅaserada
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Discovering the Logic of Legal

Reasoning
-Vern R. Walker
I. INTRODUCTION
 Legal reasoning involves:
• Quality of legal reasoning.
The rule of law requires that 1. interpreting constitutions, statutes, and
regulations
1. similar cases should be decided similarly,
2. balancing fundamental principles and
2. that each case should be decided on its merits policies
3. that decision-making processes should comply 3. adopting and modifying legal rules
with applicable rules of procedure and evidence.
4. in applying those rules to cases,
5. evaluating evidence, and
• Reasoning behind such decision-making
6. making ultimate decisions.
1. transparent
2. open to scrutiny
3. subjective preference to objective rationale.
The reasoning techniques we employ are pragmatic in at least three senses.
II.OurTHE
1. PRAGMATIC
reasoning is action-oriented. NATURE
2. Legal reasoning is pragmatic in the sense that it balances the "epistemic objective" of
law against the applicable "non-epistemic objectives."
3. Legal reasoning is pragmatic because legal decision-making occurs in real time, uses
limited resources, and is usually based on incomplete information.

III. RULE-BASED REASONING


Formal logic represents such rules as "conditional propositions."
A "proposition" is the descriptive content of an assertion or statement. It is capable of
being either true or false, and is usually expressed in ordinary language by a sentence or a
clause.
A "conditional" proposition has the logical form "ifp, then q," where p and q stand for two
constituent propositions.
Conditional schema: p= “true”=q
IV. EVIDENCE EVALUATION V. SECOND-ORDER
General Structure of Reasoning PROCESS REASONING
in Legal Case
“Second-Order" Reasoning. That is, the
Ultimate issue to be proved:
propositions of process reasoning are about
1. legal rules (implocation tree) other propositions-about the propositions
2. evidence (instantiated plausibility schema) stating substantive legal rules or about the
We can visualize systems of substantive rules of law evidentiary assertions in a particular case.
(such as the law of battery) as inverted Whether to adopt, modify, or rescind legal
"implication trees"-trees that map the conditions rules
of rules, or the implications of proving issues of
fact Case Precedents. Changing legal rules
incrementally is a practice that addresses
In logic, a "schema" is a formal linguistic pattern concerns for deciding similar cases similarly
containing variables, so that appropriate over time, for maintaining predictability of
substitutions for the variables create instances of outcome, and for providing due notice to
the pattern potentially affected parties.

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