Demystifying Legal Reasoning

Larry Alexander; Emily Sherwin

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139167420

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.

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Demystifying Legal Reasoning

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-vi

Contents
pp vii-viii

Introduction
pp 1-6

PART ONE - Law and Its Function
pp 7-8

I - Settling Moral Controversy
pp 9-26

PART TWO - Common-Law Reasoning: Deciding Cases When Prior Judicial Decisions Determine the Law
pp 27-30

II - Ordinary Reason Applied to Law: Natural Reasoning and Deduction from Rules
pp 31-63

III - The Mystification of Common-Law Reasoning
pp 64-103

IV - Common-Law Practice
pp 104-128

PART THREE - Reasoning from Canonical Legal Texts
pp 129-130

V - Interpreting Statutes and Other Posited Rules
pp 131-166

VI - Infelicities of the Intended Meaning of Canonical Texts and Norms Constraining Interpretation
pp 167-190

VII - Nonintentionalist Interpretation
pp 191-219

VIII - Is Constitutional Interpretation Different? Why It Isn't and Is
pp 220-232

Epilogue: All or Nothing
pp 233-236

Selected Bibliography
pp 237-246

Index
pp 247-253

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Demystifying Legal Reasoning

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