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 Reference
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?