Rule-applying legal arguments are traditionally treated as a kind of syllogism. Such a treatment overlooks the fact that legal principles and rules are not statements which describe the world, but rather means by which humans impose structure on the world. Legal rules create legal consequences, they do not describe them. This has consequences for the logic of rule- and principle-applying arguments, the most important of which may be that such arguments are defeasible. This book offers an extensive analysis of the role of rules and principles in legal reasoning, which focuses on the close relationship between rules, principles, and reasons. Moreover, it describes a logical theory which assigns a central place to the notion of reasons for and against a conclusion, and which is especially suited to deal with rules and principles.

Few areas of human expertise are so well understood that they can be completely reduced to general principles. Similarly, there are few domains in which experience is so extensive that every new problem precisely matches a previous problem whose solution is known. When neither rules nor examples are individually sufficient, problem-solving expertise depends on integrating both. This book presents a computational framework for the integration of rules and cases for analytic tasks typified by legal analysis. The book uses the framework for integrating cases and rules as a basis for a new model of legal precedents. This model explains how the theory under which a case is decided controls the case's precedential effect. The framework for integrating rules and cases is implemented in GREBE, a system for legal analysis. The book presents techniques for representing, indexing, and comparing complex cases and for converting justification structures based on rules and case into natural-language text. This book will interest researchers in artificial intelligence, particularly those involved in case-based reasoning, artificial intelligence and law, and formal models of argumentation, and to scholars in legal philosophy, jurisprudence, and analogical reasoning.

Demystifying Legal Reasoning defends the proposition that there are no special forms of reasoning peculiar to law. Legal decision makers engage in the same modes of reasoning that all actors use in deciding what to do: open-ended moral reasoning, empirical reasoning, and deduction from authoritative rules. This book addresses common law reasoning when prior judicial decisions determine the law, and interpretation of texts. In both areas, the popular view that legal decision makers practise special forms of reasoning is false.

This book assesses the impact of norms on decision-making. It argues that norms influence choices not by being causes for actions, but by providing reasons. Consequently it approaches the problem via an investigation of the reasoning process in which norms play a decisive role. Kratochwil argues that, depending upon the strictness the guidance norms provide in arriving at a decision, different styles of reasoning with norms can be distinguished. While the focus in this book is largely analytical, the argument is developed through the interpretation of the classic thinkers in international law (Grotius, Vattel, Pufendorf, Rousseau, Hume, Habermas).

The Little Blue Reasoning Book helps readers build essential critical thinking, creative thinking, and decision-making skills and is suitable for the everyday student, test-prep candidate, or working professional in need of a refresher course. Interwoven within the book's five chapters -Perception & Mindset, Decision Making, Creative Thinking, Analyzing Arguments, and Mastering Logic - are 50 reasoning tips that summarize the common themes behind classic reasoning problems and situations. Appendixes contain summaries of fallacious reasoning, analogies, trade-offs, and a review of critical reading.

For centuries, philosophers have been puzzled by the fact that people often respect moral obligations as a matter of principle, setting aside considerations of self-interest. In more recent years, social scientists have been puzzled by the more general phenomenon of rule-following, the fact that people often abide by social norms even when doing so produces undesirable consequences. Experimental game theorists have demonstrated conclusively that the old-fashioned picture of "economic man," constantly reoptimizing in order to maximize utility in all circumstances, cannot provide adequate foundations for a general theory of rational action. The dominant response, however, has been a slide toward irrationalism. If people are ignoring the consequences of their actions, it is claimed, it must be because they are making some sort of a mistake. In Following the Rules, Joseph Heath attempts to reverse this trend, by showing how rule-following can be understood as an essential element of rational action. The first step involves showing how rational choice theory can be modified to incorporate deontic constraint as a feature of rational deliberation. The second involves disarming the suspicion that there is something mysterious or irrational about the psychological states underlying rule-following. According to Heath, human rationality is a by-product of the so-called "language upgrade" that we receive as a consequence of the development of specific social practices. As a result, certain constitutive features of our social environment-such as the rule-governed structure of social life-migrate inwards, and become constitutive features of our psychological faculties. This in turn explains why there is an indissoluble bond between practical rationality and deontic constraint. In the end, what Heath offers is a naturalistic, evolutionary argument in favor of the traditional Kantian view that there is an internal connection between being a rational agent and feeling the force of one's moral obligations.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Rules and Reasoning, RuleML+RR 2021, held in Leuven, Belgium, during September, 2021. This is the 5th conference of a new series, joining the efforts of two existing conference series, namely “RuleML” (International Web Rule Symposium) and “RR” (Web Reasoning and Rule Systems). The 17 full research papers presented together with 2 short technical communications papers and 2 abstracts of invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 39 submissions.