Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory

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Description
What makes an argument in a law case good or bad? Can legal decisions be justified by purely rational argument or are they ultimately determined by more subjective influences? These questions are central to the study of jurisprudence, and are thoroughly and critically examined in Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory, now with a new and updated foreword. Its clarity of explanation and argument make this classic legal text readily accessible to lawyers, philosophers, and any general reader interested in legal processes, human reasoning, or practical logic.
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Contents
1.    Introduction
2.    Deductive Justification
3.    Deductive Justification - Presuppositions and Limits
4.    The Constraint of Formal Justice
5.    Second-Order Justification
6.    Consequentialist Arguments
7.    The Requirement of Coherence: Principles and Analogies
8.    The Requirement of Consistency and the Problem of Interpretation:
       Gear Cases  and Hard Cases
9.    Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory Excursus
10.  Law, Morality, and the Limits of Practical Reason
Appendix: On the Internal Aspect of Norms
Index of Statutes Cited
General Index
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Author Details
Neil MacCormick is Professor of Public Law at the University of Edinburgh.
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