Arguing About Goals: The Diminishing Scope of Legal Reasoning

Pauline Westerman

doi:10.1007/s10503-009-9172-9

Argumentation May 2010 Open Access

Arguing About Goals: The Diminishing Scope of Legal Reasoning

Pauline Westerman University of Groningen

Abstract

This article investigates the implications of goal-legislation for legal argumentation. In goal-regulation the legislator formulates the aims to be reached, leaving it to the norm-addressee to draft the necessary rules. On the basis of six types of hard cases, it is argued that in such a system there is hardly room for constructing a ratio legis. Legal interpretation is largely reduced to concretisation. This implies that legal argumentation tends to become highly dependent on expert (non-legal) knowledge.

Journal: Argumentation
Published: 2010-05-01
DOI: 10.1007/s10503-009-9172-9
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Topics: argument
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Arguing About Goals: The Diminishing Scope of Legal Reasoning

Abstract

Citation context

Cited by in this index (1)

References (12) · 1 in this index

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