What is Legal Reasoning

Bibliographic Data

ID6429023
AuthorsLuca Siliquini-Cinelli (0000-0003-4455-3769, Cardiff University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume38
Issue1
Pages143-162
Publication date2024-05-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0952-8059 • E-ISSN: 1572-8722
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s11196-024-10141-3
OpenAlexW4396580672
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited23

Pursuant to the aims and scope of the Special Issue it is part of, this invited contribution seeks to shed new light on the nature and working logic of legal reasoning. It does so by engaging with two of the most authoritative views on the subject which have recently been put forward in the Common law world—namely, Lord Hoffmann’s, and Larry Alexander and Emily Sherwin’s. A key-concern of the Anglophone debate on legal reasoning is whether it is a specialistic type of reasoning requiring ad hoc education and training, or ordinary reasoning subject to ordinary rules of language (i.e. sentence construction, interpretation, etc.). The article argues that compelling though they are, these sorts of enquiries do not help to understand what legal reasoning really is and how it operates. In particular, it argues that if we are to understand what legal reasoning is and how it works, we ought to examine the propositions it aims to craft and support. In so arguing, the article further shows that exploring law’s nature and operations as an intellectual means for social ordering also helps to understand how law works as a regulatory phenomenon more generally

Applied linguistics · Comparative law · Engineering ethics · Epistemology · Linguistics · Philosophy of law · Political science · Engineering · Law · Legal principles and applications · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy

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