Download or read book Legal Reasoning written by Martin P. Golding and published by Broadview Press. This book was released on 2001-03-02 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a book that is a blend of text and readings, Martin P. Golding explores legal reasoning from a variety of angles—including that of judicial psychology. The primary focus, however, is on the ‘logic’ of judicial decision making. How do judges justify their decisions? What sort of arguments do they use? In what ways do they rely on legal precedent? Golding includes a wide variety of cases, as well as a brief bibliographic essay (updated for this Broadview Encore Edition).

Download or read book The Right to Justification written by Rainer Forst and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary philosophical pluralism recognizes the inevitability and legitimacy of multiple ethical perspectives and values, making it difficult to isolate the higher-order principles on which to base a theory of justice. Rising up to meet this challenge, Rainer Forst, a leading member of the Frankfurt School's newest generation of philosophers, conceives of an "autonomous" construction of justice founded on what he calls the basic moral right to justification. Forst begins by identifying this right from the perspective of moral philosophy. Then, through an innovative, detailed critical analysis, he ties together the central components of social and political justice--freedom, democracy, equality, and toleration--and joins them to the right to justification. The resulting theory treats "justificatory power" as the central question of justice, and by adopting this approach, Forst argues, we can discursively work out, or "construct," principles of justice, especially with respect to transnational justice and human rights issues. As he builds his theory, Forst engages with the work of Anglo-American philosophers such as John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Amartya Sen, and critical theorists such as Jürgen Habermas, Nancy Fraser, and Axel Honneth. Straddling multiple subjects, from politics and law to social protest and philosophical conceptions of practical reason, Forst brilliantly gathers contesting claims around a single, elastic theory of justice.

Download or read book A Theory of Legal Argumentation written by Robert Alexy and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2009-12-10 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is to be understood by 'rational legal argument'? To what extent can legal reasoning be rational? Is the demand for rationality in legal affairs justified? And what are the criteria of rationality in legal reasoning? The answer to these questions is not only of interest to legal theorists and philosophers of law. They are pressing issues for practicing lawyers, and a matter of concern for every citizen active in the public arena. Not only the standing of academic law as a scientific discipline, but also the legitimacy of judicial decisions depends on the possibility of rational legal argumentation. A theory of legal reasoning which tries to answer these questions pre-supposes a theory of general practical reasoning. This theory is the subject matter of the first two parts of the book. The result is a theory of general practical discourse which rests on insights of both Anglo-Saxon and German philosophy. It forms the basis of the theory of rational legal discourse, which is developed in the third part of this book.

Download or read book A Primer on Legal Reasoning written by Michael Evan Gold and published by ILR Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After years of teaching law courses to undergraduate, graduate, and law students, Michael Evan Gold has come to believe that the traditional way of teaching – analysis, explanation, and example – is superior to the Socratic Method for students at the outset of their studies. In courses taught Socratically, even the most gifted students can struggle, and many others are lost in a fog for months. Gold offers a meta approach to teaching legal reasoning, bringing the process of argumentation to the fore. Using examples both from the law and from daily life, Gold's book will help undergraduates and first-year law students to understand legal discourse. The book analyzes and illustrates the principles of legal reasoning, such as logical deduction, analogies and distinctions, and application of law to fact, and even solves the mystery of how to spot an issue. In Gold's experience, students who understand the principles of analytical thinking are able to understand arguments, to evaluate and reply to them, and ultimately to construct sound arguments of their own.

Download or read book Handbook of Legal Reasoning and Argumentation written by Giorgio Bongiovanni and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-02 with total page 773 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook addresses legal reasoning and argumentation from a logical, philosophical and legal perspective. The main forms of legal reasoning and argumentation are covered in an exhaustive and critical fashion, and are analysed in connection with more general types (and problems) of reasoning. Accordingly, the subject matter of the handbook divides in three parts. The first one introduces and discusses the basic concepts of practical reasoning. The second one discusses the general structures and procedures of reasoning and argumentation that are relevant to legal discourse. The third one looks at their instantiations and developments of these aspects of argumentation as they are put to work in the law, in different areas and applications of legal reasoning.

Download or read book Methods of Legal Reasoning written by Jerzy Stelmach and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-09-03 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Demystifying Legal Reasoning written by Larry Alexander and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-06-16 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict written by Cass R. Sunstein and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-02-26 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most glamorous and even glorious moments in a legal system come when a high court recognizes an abstract principle involving, for example, human liberty or equality. Indeed, Americans, and not a few non-Americans, have been greatly stirred--and divided--by the opinions of the Supreme Court, especially in the area of race relations, where the Court has tried to revolutionize American society. But these stirring decisions are aberrations, says Cass R. Sunstein, and perhaps thankfully so. In Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict, Sunstein, one of America's best known commentators on our legal system, offers a bold, new thesis about how the law should work in America, arguing that the courts best enable people to live together, despite their diversity, by resolving particular cases without taking sides in broader, more abstract conflicts. Sunstein offers a close analysis of the way the law can mediate disputes in a diverse society, examining how the law works in practical terms, and showing that, to arrive at workable, practical solutions, judges must avoid broad, abstract reasoning. Why? For one thing, critics and adversaries who would never agree on fundamental ideals are often willing to accept the concrete details of a particular decision. Likewise, a plea bargain for someone caught exceeding the speed limit need not--indeed, must not--delve into sweeping issues of government regulation and personal liberty. Thus judges purposely limit the scope of their decisions to avoid reopening large-scale controversies. Sunstein calls such actions incompletely theorized agreements. In identifying them as the core feature of legal reasoning--and as a central part of constitutional thinking in America, South Africa, and Eastern Europe-- he takes issue with advocates of comprehensive theories and systemization, from Robert Bork (who champions the original understanding of the Constitution) to Jeremy Bentham, the father of utilitarianism, and Ronald Dworkin, who defends an ambitious role for courts in the elaboration of rights. Equally important, Sunstein goes on to argue that it is the living practice of the nation's citizens that truly makes law. For example, he cites Griswold v. Connecticut, a groundbreaking case in which the Supreme Court struck down Connecticut's restrictions on the use of contraceptives by married couples--a law that was no longer enforced by prosecutors. In overturning the legislation, the Court invoked the abstract right of privacy; the author asserts that the justices should have appealed to the narrower principle that citizens need not comply with laws that lack real enforcement. By avoiding large-scale issues and values, such a decision could have led to a different outcome in Bowers v. Hardwick, the decision that upheld Georgia's rarely prosecuted ban on sodomy. And by pointing to the need for flexibility over time and circumstances, Sunstein offers a novel understanding of the old ideal of the rule of law. Legal reasoning can seem impenetrable, mysterious, baroque. This book helps dissolve the mystery. Whether discussing the interpretation of the Constitution or the spell cast by the revolutionary Warren Court, Cass Sunstein writes with grace and power, offering a striking and original vision of the role of the law in a diverse society. In his flexible, practical approach to legal reasoning, he moves the debate over fundamental values and principles out of the courts and back to its rightful place in a democratic state: the legislatures elected by the people.

Download or read book Law School Basics written by David Hricik and published by Nova Press. This book was released on 2021-01-15 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Law school has the reputation of being one of the hardest academic programs. It is a reputation well earned. However, Law School Basics is chock-full of insights and strategies that will prepare you well and give you a head start on the competition. Law School Basics presents a thorough overview of law school, legal reasoning, and legal writing. It was written for those who are considering law school; for those who are about to start law school; and for those who are interested in knowing more about lawyering and the legal process. Law School Basics was written with one overriding goal: to enlighten you about everything the author wishes he had known before starting law school.

Download or read book Defending Humanity written by George P. Fletcher and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2008-03-18 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recoge: Murder among nations -- How to talk about self-defense -- A theory of legitimate defense -- The six elements of legitimate defense -- Excusing international aggression -- Humanitarian intervention -- Preemptive and preventitive wars -- The collective dimension of war.

Download or read book Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory written by Neil MacCormick and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 1994-08-11 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Words Objects and Events in Economics written by Peter Róna and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book examines from a variety of perspectives the disappearance of moral content and ethical judgment from the models employed in the formulation of modern economic theory, and some of the papers contain important proposals about how moral judgment could be reintroduced in economic theory. The chapters collected in this volume result from the favorable reception of the first volume of the Virtues in Economics series and represent further contributions to the themes set out in that volume: (i) examining the philosophical and methodological fallacies of this turn in modern economic theory that the removal of the moral motivation of economic agents from modern economic theory has entailed; and (ii) proposing a return descriptive economics as the means with which the moral content of economic life could be restored in economic theory. This book is of interest to researchers and students of the methodology of economics, ethics, philosophers concerned with agency and economists who build economic models that rest in the intention of the agent.

Download or read book Modeling Legal Argument written by Kevin D. Ashley and published by MIT Press (MA). This book was released on 1990 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Modeling Legal Argument "provides a comprehensive treatment of case-based reasoning and a detailed description of a computer program called Hypo, that models the way attorneys argue with cases, real and hypothetical. The program offers significant advantages over "keyword" case retrieval systems in the legal field and demonstrates how to design expert systems that assist the user by presenting reasonable alternative answers on all sides of an issue and by citing case examples to explain their advice.Hypo analyzes problem situations dealing with trade secrets disputes, retrieves relevant legal cases from its database and fashions them into reasonable legal arguments about who should win. The arguments demonstrate the program's ability to reason symbolically with past cases, to draw factual analogies between cases, to cite them in arguments, to distinguish them, and to pose counter-examples and hypotheticals based on past cases."Modeling Legal Argument "discusses the law as a paradigm of case-based argument, introduces Hypo and its adversarial reasoning process, provides an overview of the Hypo program, and gives extended examples of the model's reasoning capabilities. It describes the case knowledge base, a dimensional index, basic mechanisms of case-based reasoning, and offers a theory of case-based argument in Hypo. Ashley evaluates Hypo's performance and takes up adversarial case-based reasoning beyond the law and extensions of the Hypo model.Kevin D. Ashley is a Research Scientist at the Learning Research an Development Center and Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh. "Modeling Legal Argument is "included in the Artificial Intelligence and Legal Reasoning series, edited by L. Thorne McCarty and Edwina L. Rissland.

Download or read book Thinking Like a Lawyer written by Frederick F. Schauer and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-27 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This primer on legal reasoning is aimed at law students and upper-level undergraduates. But it is also an original exposition of basic legal concepts that scholars and lawyers will find stimulating. It covers such topics as rules, precedent, authority, analogical reasoning, the common law, statutory interpretation, legal realism, judicial opinions, legal facts, and burden of proof. In addressing the question whether legal reasoning is distinctive, Frederick Schauer emphasizes the formality and rule-dependence of law. When taking the words of a statute seriously, when following a rule even when it does not produce the best result, when treating the fact of a past decision as a reason for making the same decision again, or when relying on authoritative sources, the law embodies values other than simply that of making the best decision for the particular occasion or dispute. In thus pursuing goals of stability, predictability, and constraint on the idiosyncrasies of individual decision-makers, the law employs forms of reasoning that may not be unique to it but are far more dominant in legal decision-making than elsewhere. Schauer’s analysis of what makes legal reasoning special will be a valuable guide for students while also presenting a challenge to a wide range of current academic theories.

Download or read book Legal Reasoning Research and Writing for International Graduate Students written by Nadia E. Nedzel and published by Aspen Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-31 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Legal Reasoning, Research, and Writing for International Graduate Students, Fifth Edition, helps international students understand and approach legal reasoning and writing the way law students and attorneys do in the United States. With concise and clear text, Professor Nedzel introduces the unique and important features of the American legal system and American law schools. Using clear instruction, examples, visual aids, and practice exercises, she teaches practical lawyering skills with sensitivity to the challenges of ESL students. New to the Fifth Edition: Streamlined presentation makes the material even more accessible. Chapters are short, direct, and to the point. Five chapters on reasoning and writing, including exam skills, office memos, and rewriting. Full chapters on contract drafting and scholarly writing. New flowcharts provide a concise, visual overview for each chapter. Citation coverage updated to new 21st edition of The Bluebook. Simplified examples and exercises. Three thoroughly revised chapters on legal research, including non-fee legal research and technological changes in the practice of U.S. law. Professors and student will benefit from: Comparative perspective informs readers about the unique features of American law as compared to civil law, Islamic law, and Asian traditions. Explanations of practical skills assume no former knowledge of the American legal system. U.S. law school necessary skills explained immediately: case briefing, creating a course outline, time management, reading citations, and writing answers to hypothetical exam questions. Short, lucid chapters that reiterate major points to aid comprehension. Clear introductions to writing hypothetical-based exams, legal memoranda, contract drafting and scholarly writing. An integrated approach to proper citation format, with explanation and instruction provided in context. Discussion of plagiarism and U.S. law school honor codes. Practical skill-building exercises in each chapter. Research exercises are primarily Internet-based Charts and summaries that are useful learning aids and reference tools

Download or read book On Law and Reason written by Aleksander Peczenik and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-01-12 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'This is an outline of a coherence theory of law. Its basic ideas are: reasonable support and weighing of reasons. All the rest is commentary.’ These words at the beginning of the preface of this book perfectly indicate what On Law and Reason is about. It is a theory about the nature of the law which emphasises the role of reason in the law and which refuses to limit the role of reason to the application of deductive logic. In 1989, when the first edition of On Law and Reason appeared, this book was ground breaking for several reasons. It provided a rationalistic theory of the law in the language of analytic philosophy and based on a thorough understanding of the results, including technical ones, of analytic philosophy. That was not an obvious combination at the time of the book’s first appearance and still is not. The result is an analytical rigor that is usually associated with positivist theories of the law, combined with a philosophical position that is not natural law in a strict sense, but which shares with it the emphasis on the role of reason in determining what the law is. If only for this rare combination, On Law and Reason still deserves careful study. On Law and Reason also foreshadowed and influenced a development in the field of Legal Logic that would take place in the nineties of the 20th century, namely the development of non-monotonic (‘defeasible’) logics for the analysis of legal reasoning. In the new Introduction to this second edition, this aspect is explored in some more detail.

Download or read book Model Rules of Professional Conduct written by American Bar Association. House of Delegates and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 2007 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.