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Full Idea
There is almost universal agreement that legal reasoning is fundamentally analogical, not deductive, in character.
Clarification
'Analogical' reasoning centres on comparison of examples
Gist of Idea
Legal reasoning is analogical, not deductive
Source
Robert Fogelin (Walking the Tightrope of Reason [2003], Ch.2)
Book Ref
Fogelin,Robert: 'Walking the Tightrope of Reason' [OUP 2004], p.63
A Reaction
This raises the question of whether analogy can be considered as 'reasoning' in itself. How do you compare the examples? Could you compare two examples if you lacked language, or rules, or a scale of values?
| 15770 | Some things cannot be defined, and only an analogy can be given [Aristotle] |
| 4636 | All reasoning concerning matters of fact is based on analogy (with similar results of similar causes) [Hume] |
| 6961 | An analogy begins to break down as soon as the two cases differ [Hume] |
| 5555 | Philosophical examples rarely fit rules properly, and lead to inflexibility [Kant] |
| 5331 | You can't infer that because you have a hidden birth-mark, everybody else does [Ayer] |
| 6574 | Legal reasoning is analogical, not deductive [Fogelin] |
| 7465 | Babylonian thinking used analogy, rather than deduction or induction [Watson] |
| 16307 | Don't trust analogies; they are no more than a guideline [Halbach] |