3 décembre 2022

Three Types of Legal Reasoning

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The requirement of moral reason as a criterion of good reasoning involves the 3 points; Conclusions they draw: The first mood denies the truth of one disjunction in its second premise and then confirms in its conclusion the truth of the other; The second agreement confirms the truth of one disjunction in the second premise and then concludes that the other disjunction must be false. Only the first mood is in a purely logical sense a disjunctive syllogism. The second chord, in its disjunctive premise, presupposes a sentence more complex than a simple disjunctive sentence. Nevertheless, in some situations of legal argumentation, arguments arise in the second mood. When they do, they are usually represented as simple disjunctive syllogisms. Inductive arguments cannot be properly evaluated as valid or invalid. You also can`t say they`re healthy or unhealthy. This is because the concepts of validity and validity are related to arguments, the form of which makes it possible to draw a necessarily true conclusion, a degree of inference force unattainable by inductive reasoning. Inductive arguments lead to more or less probable conclusions. They are better or worse, given the degree or strength of support that the premises provide for the conclusion. A convincing inductive argument with true premises is sometimes called a persuasive argument. Among the various forms of legal argumentation, analogy is most commonly used in judicial decisions and legal interpretations.

Inductive reasoning begins with observation of facts and comes to a general conclusion. Thus, induction thinking follows two processes: observation and generalization. Therefore, inductive reasoning is a process of thinking through examples. The relationship between law and reason is intuitive and universally recognized. Since the law is often said openly, it offers a variety of interpretations and analyses, and judicial decisions are often made through practical argumentation. Analogy plays an important role in legal reasoning to make the decision coherent and coherent. The analogous thought process is to determine the similarity between the previous case and the present case and to determine the ratio decidendi of the previous case and apply it to the present case. Therefore, for Perelman, legal reasoning is a practical argument for convincing the truth rather than establishing it. From the above definitions, one can deduce a definition of legal thought as the art of convincing thinking in a coordinated, orderly, reasonable and logical manner in relation to the law. Legal reasoning is simply learning to think like a lawyer. Legal reasoning often revolves around the question of whether the case currently pending before the courts is relevant like other previously decided cases.

Therefore, a strictly legalistic approach to legal reasoning cannot achieve the social objectives pursued. Lawyers had long since refuted the purely legalistic approach to legal argumentation. Essentially, legal reasoning can be defined as reasoning used to explain, guide, interpret and evaluate laws, legal principles and standards. Knowledge of the law and facts is therefore a prerequisite for legal justification. As an argument formally identical to Socrates` argument, Marshall J.A.`s Bevans argument has the same logical force with respect to validity. Indeed, the validity of a categorical syllogism is entirely a product of the form of the argument – that is, of its formal structure, which is determined by the types of categorical utterances it contains and the positioning of its terms. A valid categorical syllogism is therefore valid only on the basis of its form. The content, subject matter and truthfulness or falsity of his statements do not affect the validity of the argument. Since validity is exclusively a matter of formal structure, categorical syllogisms that take the same form are the same regardless of the content in terms of validity. If we know that some form of categorical syllogism is valid (for example, Socrates` argument), then another argument in the same form (Bevans) is also valid. This is true even if one or more of the categorical sentences of the argument are false. Consider this argument: deductive legal reasoning establishes formal logic by identifying or adopting basic premises from which certain legal conclusions can be drawn. Since the purpose of the legal motivation is to justify a judicial decision, it must comply with certain relevant legal criteria and rules.

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the principles of logic and methods of reasoning that are most common in law and judicial practice. The article focuses on the two general categories of logical reasoning: inductive reasoning (analogy and generalization) and deductive reasoning (especially deductive syllogisms). In his rhetoric, Aristotle wrote that « whoever proves something is obliged to use either syllogisms or inductions. » [11] Modern logic has evolved in more complex and symbolic directions than these two general categories. Nevertheless, deductive syllogisms and inductive reasoning remain remarkably useful for understanding the basic structures and forms of thought used in law and legal discourse. For this reason, this article focuses on describing a number of key considerations to develop a good working knowledge of these two categories of reasoning. In order to fully understand the legal reasoning, the language of the law would first be highlighted, some key terms would be defined, and finally the different methods of legal reasoning would be discussed. On the other hand, deductive reasoning is only relevant in established laws or jurisdictions, rules and principles. Consistency plays an important role in ensuring the integrity of legal reasoning and guiding judges in attempting to interpret the law correctly. Coherence is not just the logical consistency of decisions.

Rather, it is treated as integrity in the interpretation of the law. The language of logic used here to describe the basic categories of inductive and deductive reasoning is not common language in law. However, the models of argumentation that can be found in the forms of argumentation presented are the everyday models of legal argumentation. For the field of law, and in particular in this field, the practice of judicial decision-making is an area determined by practical thinking and advisory judgment. In practice, people tend to think, argue and think according to a relatively narrow set of logical forms of reasoning. At the turn of the 20th century, those at the forefront of the legal realist movement lamented the excessive use of logic in law and judicial decisions. Since then, judges and lawyers in common law jurisdictions have downplayed the importance of formal logic in understanding the law and legal reasoning. Rules-based reasoning is the most important type of legal reasoning.

In rule-based reasoning, you take a rule (a law or case law) and apply it to a set of facts (this is a type of deductive reasoning). Richard Neumann found that rules consist of at least three parts: « (1) a set of elements, collectively called a test; (2) a result that occurs when all items are present (and the test is thus completed); and (3). a causal term that determines whether the outcome is mandatory, prohibitive, discretionary or declaratory. (Richard K. Neumann, Jr., Legal Reasoning and Legal Writing: Structure, Strategy, and Style 16 (2005). In addition, some rules have « one or more exceptions that, if present, would cancel out the result, even if all the elements are present ». (Ibid.) An example of a rule would be the intentional infliction of emotional harm when (1) the defendant`s conduct is outrageous, (2) the defendant`s conduct is intentional, (3) the defendant`s conduct causes severe emotional distress, and (4) causes severe emotional distress.

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