LAW115 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Inductive Reasoning, Deductive Reasoning, Headnote
18 May 2018
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LAW115 LECTURE 19/3/18
WK4: JUDICAL REASONING ND THE DOCTRINE OF PRECEDENT
READINGS
LAW AS A DICIPLINE
Law, in contemporary Western societies such as Australia, is formally an autonomous
discipline. This means that, while our law may be affected by morality, or politics, or
religion, it is separate from them.
A benefit of law being treated as an autonomous discipline is that one legal system applies
to all people in a country, form many different background and religions. A consequence,
though, is that legal reasoning often appears to exist in a vacuum, and to a person not
trained in legal reasoning it may seem that arguments can follow a path of mental
gymnastics to generate an outcome.
Law is a narrow, focused, succinct, judicious and frill-free process of thinking and writing.
LEGAL REASONING
There are six key aspects to thinking like a lawyer in the process of legal reasoning;
1. Non-assumptive thinking
2. Facts over emotions
3. Tolerance of ambiguity
4. Ability to make connections between facts, documents and laws
5. Verbal mapping and ordering
6. Autoati deil’s adoay
INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE REASONING
Inductive; inductive reasoning works from the specific to general. We begin by examining
observations, and from them we identify patterns and similarities, which enable us to create
hypotheses to explore.
Deductive; deductive reasoning works from the general to the specific. We begin with a
general theory which we use to create a hypothesis, and we test that hypothesis by specific
observations in order to determine whether they confirm our original theory or not. This
can also be described as reasoning from major to minor premise.
AUTONOMY OF A CASE
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- Law Report
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Headnote
Legal Representatives
Judgement
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Document Summary
Wk4: judical reasoning nd the doctrine of precedent. Law, in contemporary western societies such as australia, is formally an autonomous discipline. This means that, while our law may be affected by morality, or politics, or religion, it is separate from them. A benefit of law being treated as an autonomous discipline is that one legal system applies to all people in a country, form many different background and religions. A consequence, though, is that legal reasoning often appears to exist in a vacuum, and to a person not trained in legal reasoning it may seem that arguments can follow a path of mental gymnastics to generate an outcome. Law is a narrow, focused, succinct, judicious and frill-free process of thinking and writing. Inductive; inductive reasoning works from the specific to general. We begin by examining observations, and from them we identify patterns and similarities, which enable us to create hypotheses to explore.
