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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Larry Alexander  and
Emily Sherwin
Larry Alexander
Affiliation:
University of San Diego School of Law
Emily Sherwin
Affiliation:
Cornell University Law School, New York
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Summary

Legal reasoning, meaning reasoning about the requirements and application of law, has been studied for centuries. This is not surprising: legal decision making is tremendously important to peace, prosperity, human dignity, and daily life. Yet, at least since Sir Edward Coke described the common law as “an artificial perfection of reason,” legal reasoning has been surrounded by an air of mystery. More recent works on legal reasoning have produced neither clarity nor consensus on what legal deliberation entails; if anything, they have compounded the problem. Legal decision making is frequently described as a “craft” involving special forms of reasoning that are accessible only to those with long experience in applying law. Seasoned judges and lawyers are said to reason analogically from one case to another and to discover or construct “legal principles” that differ from the moral principles that govern decision making in other areas of life.

Our own contribution to the subject of legal reasoning is fairly simple: we believe that legal reasoning is ordinary reasoning applied to legal problems. Legal decision makers engage in open-ended moral reasoning, empirical reasoning, and deduction from authoritative rules. These are the same modes of reasoning that all actors use in deciding what to do. Popular descriptions of additional forms of reasoning special to law are, in our view, simply false. Past results cannot determine the outcomes of new disputes. Analogical reasoning, as such, is not possible. Legal principles are both logically incoherent and normatively unattractive.

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Chapter
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Demystifying Legal Reasoning , pp. 1 - 6
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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  • Introduction
  • Larry Alexander, University of San Diego School of Law, Emily Sherwin
  • Book: Demystifying Legal Reasoning
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139167420.001
Available formats
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Save book to Dropbox

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  • Introduction
  • Larry Alexander, University of San Diego School of Law, Emily Sherwin
  • Book: Demystifying Legal Reasoning
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139167420.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Larry Alexander, University of San Diego School of Law, Emily Sherwin
  • Book: Demystifying Legal Reasoning
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139167420.001
Available formats
×