This paper defends a position that parts ways with the positivist view of legal certainty and reasonableness. I start out with a reconstruction of this view and move on to argue that an adequate analysis of certainty and reasonableness calls for an alternative approach, one based on the acknowledgement that argumentation is key to determining the contents, structure, and boundaries of a legal system. Here I claim that by endorsing a dialectical notion of rationality this alternative account espouses an ambitious (...) approach to reasoning in law and conceives of the theory of legal argumentation as the vantage point from which to analyze legal systems and tackle the main problems connected with their existence. Next, I look at what this alternative approach does for the way we should go about treating certainty and reasonableness, considered singularly as well as in their reciprocal relationship. I conclude on this basis that when argumentation receives its due emphasis in law we have to redefine certainty and reasonableness and recast their connection as non-conflictive. (shrink)

In practical reasoning, reasonableness ‐ as opposed to rationality ‐ is an important concept. This paper explores the notion of reasonableness as applied exclusively to legal decisions. Conflicting values or legal requirements can make rationally deduced solutions unattainable, and may call for criteria of reasonableness, Conflicting values must be weighed, and weighed against each other, in search of a point of equilibrium between them. Legal cases are more or less difficult to solve, depending on the difficulty of finding a unique (...) optimal equilibrium. The relevance of factual and ideal consensus for the determination of a reasonable legal decision is underlined. Finally, a definition of “reasonable legal decision” is proposed. (shrink)

The author outlines a conceptually oriented rational reconstruction of crisis tendencies in modern law. The connection between problems of legitimacy and the notion of rationality is emphasized and topics involving both the theory of communicative rationality and the theory of practical reasoning (especially in law) are discussed. The author concludes that a theory transcending the traditional approaches is needed. Otherwise, we shall not be able to face the questions of jurisprudence in the future, especially as regards an assessment of the (...) relations between law and morality, between law and society and finally between law, legitimacy and democracy. (shrink)

The author singles out various conceptions of rationality used in practical legal discourse: formal and substantive rationality, instrumental goal‐ and means‐rationality, communicative rationality. Practical rationality is expressed in decisions justified by epistemic and axiological premises according to the rules of justificatory reasoning. Five levels of analysis of this justification are identified. Rules, principles and evaluations are used as justifying arguments and their characteristics determine the dimensions of rationality of decision depending on the features of rules, various conceptions of principles, and (...) kinds of relativisation of evaluations. The dimensions of legal rationality depend mainly on three singled out conceptions of rationality, i.e., formal rationality dealing with the deep structure of justification, instrumentally oriented rationality as content of justifiability, and communicative rationality linked with the pragmatics of human interaction. Legitimacy, according to the presented analysis, appears as a subclass of external justification dealing with axiological premisses in terms of instrumental rationality and/or communicative rationality. (shrink)

In this article, we try to trace the relationship between semiotics and theory of legal reasoning using Peirce’s idea that all reasoning must be necessarily in signs: every act of reasoning/argumentation is a sign process, leading to “the growth of knowledge. The broad scope and universal character of Peirce’s sign theory of reasoning allows us to look for new conciliatory paradigms, which must be presented in terms of possible synthesis between the traditional approaches to argumentation. These traditional approaches are strongly (...) affected by either the dialectical (logical) perspective or the rhetorical perspective on argumentation, while Peirce’s approach tends to reconcile the rhetorical and methodological aspects of reasoning. This reconcilation is best illustrated by Peircean analysis of argument’s logical and rhetorical structure; while the diagrammatic (iconic) analysis of arguments is performed in the system of Existential Graphs (which is Peirce’s major methodological system, designed for the expressions of propositions in point of their relational structure). Obviously, Peirce’s original division of argument parts offered only the characterisation of the sign activity (involved in the process of reasoning), and thus left much to be desired in terms of practical explication. (shrink)

Although the genetic argument is a widely used interpretative argument, what it amounts to does not seem to be altogether clear. Basic forms of the genetic argument that are distinguished are often too rough to provide an adequate basis for the evaluation of an interpretative decision. In this article I attempt to provide a more detailed analysis of the genetic argument by making use of pragma-dialectical insights. The analysis clarifies the character and the structure of different forms of the genetic (...) argument and thus the elements that are relevant for the evaluation of the argument.*. (shrink)

The theory of rhetoric is recognised and widely used in a number of disciplines, particularly in the social sciences. It is therefore slightly surprising that it has not gained an important footing in jurisprudence. It is often argued that rhetoric and argumentative justification are clearly different issues. However, the present paper argues that they are in fact two aspects of argumentation and that the theory of rhetoric may be used also in the context of legal reasoning.

This paper gives a survey of the philosophy of science in Finland during the two decades 1970-90. Topics covered include the background (earlier studies by Eino Kaila, G. H. von Wright, and Jaakko Hintikka), the main areas of research (inductive logic, probability, truthlikeness, scientific theory, theory change, scientific realism, explanation and action, foundations of special disciplines), and the cultural impact of science studies.

This article presents moral jurisprudence theory as a systematic approach to business ethics that analogizes core problems of the field to related problems in law. Adapting theoretical approaches from contemporary philosophy of law, the article develops a decision-making method for business ethics.

Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, EarlyView.

The author introduces a normative conception of coherence, derived from a pragmatic interpretation of the application of norms to concrete cases. A distinction is made between the justification of a norm and its application. In the case of moral norms, justification and application can be analysed as two different discursive procedures which give rise to different aspects of the principle of impartiality. Impartial justification requires a procedure by which all interests concerned are taken into account whereas impartial application requires a (...) procedure where all features of a situation are considered. The complete description of a concrete case makes necessary a coherent interpretation of all the valid norms which are prima facie applicable. This requirement of an ideal coherent system of norms is restricted to interpretive “paradigms” in the case of legal norms, because it is necessary to produce singular judgments under the restrictive conditions of scarce time and incomplete knowledge. (shrink)