Reasoning and Legal Reasoning

Abstract

Abstract Does law have special forms of logic? Does it offer a distinctive form of reasoning? To both questions, the simplest answer is no. The forms of logic and reasoning in law are entirely familiar—the same forms as else-where. But the simplest answer is too simple. Participants in law do reason with their own conventions, and they do create and face special constraints. Participants in law have their own vocabularies and their own tools. They are concerned above all with issues of legitimate authority; they attempt to allocate power to the right people. And because of the particular social roles that lawyers and judges occupy, they think, in a sense, in their own ways. It is for this reason that legal thinking is not economics, or politics, or philosophy.