Modus Ponens
Modus Tollens
Formal Fallacies
Sound syllogism
Valid syllogism
True syllogism
Fallacy of Affirming the Consequent
Syllogism
Transpositional logic method
Contrapositive
Means-end rationality
Incompletely theorized agreements
Conceptual assent
Reasoning in Garrison
Reasoning in Emerick
Know how Legal Reasoning is a part of Jurisprudence.
Substantive vs. Procedural Law
Standards of Proof
Legal Reasoning is supposed to implement the rule of law by drawing the connection
between the law and a particular government action that deprives an individual
of life, liberty, or property.
Validity and Truth of syllogisms.
Rule as an abstract or general statement of what the law permits or requires of classes of persons in classes of circumstances.
A case as a short story of an incident.
Happy Cows case
According to Burton, the highest appellate courts will care that the law is reasonably stable and predictable so that lawyers and lower court judges can do their jobs well and people can efficiently plan their activities.
Karl Llewelyn: general propositions are empty…learning the shell of the law not the substance…multitude of concrete instances as are necessary to make…a rule of law…mean anything at all.
The analogical form of reasoning: The problem of importance; Precedents; Factual Similarity and Differences.
Know the form and arguments of the Costello cases in Burton.
Define Holding
Define Dicta
Deductive form of argument: major premise, minor premise, conclusion.
Importance of distribution of middle term in syllogism.
UCC article 2 example of the Merchant argument.
Reflective equilibrium
Bentham's attitudes about utilitarianism and codification.
Casuistry
Untrammeled discretion
A key function of law is to assign entitlements.
Kinds of rules: simple or complex.
The vice of formalism - comment by William James -American Pragmatist
Rules with excuses: necessity or emergency defenses
Presumptions, standards, factors, principles, guidelines, analogy, interpretation,
The drawback of large scale theories
Target and source cases
Arguments, Constitutive analogies, metaphors
Precedents as rules and analogies
Analogical confusion
Justice Holmes in Buck v Bell.
The relationship between analogy and democracy
Differences between common, constitutional, statutory law in analogous reasoning.
Ordinary meaning in statutory interpretation.
Scientific challenge of Bentham to analogical reasoning.