Phronesis and Forensics

Abstract

This paper deals with the concept of practical wisdom and its applications in the field of jurisprudence. The starting point is the Aristotelian idea that a skill to understand and apply law is an embodiment of practical sense. racticality of law has many dimensions. One important dimension is contextuality. Contextuality appears as the situation dependence of interpretation. Hence, the ultimate content of law is context dependent, too. I try to elucidate the essence of practicality of law and its interpretation by examining a precedent of the Finnish Supreme Court (KKO 1997: 87). It is a case involving the distribution of an estate among heirs. The main idea of that decision is that the proper values of inheritance-shares depend on the utilization values of them and the whole economic situation among heirs. What is just depends on a situation. Taken seriously, the practicality and contextuality of law forces us to adopt an unconventional conception of jurisprudence. First, it is doubtful if one can point to any scientific method at all. Second, according to this conception, legal dogmatics is not a description of law. Rather, it is a skill of argumentation, the skill of taking considered steps from different kinds of arguments to conclusions. The purpose of legal dogmatics is to offer valid and useful arguments to be used in different situations.