Argument Types and Fallacies in Legal Argumentation

✍ Scribed by Thomas Bustamante, Christian Dahlman (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer International Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 230
• Series: Law and Philosophy Library 112
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book provides theoretical tools for evaluating the soundness of arguments in the context of legal argumentation. It deals with a number of general argument types and their particular use in legal argumentation. It provides detailed analyses of argument from authority, argument ad hominem, argument from ignorance, slippery slope argument and other general argument types. Each of these argument types can be used to construct arguments that are sound as well as arguments that are unsound. To evaluate an argument correctly one must be able to distinguish the sound instances of a certain argument type from its unsound instances. This book promotes the development of theoretical tools for this task.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xvi
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
Appeal to Expert Testimony – A Bayesian Approach....Pages 3-18
Ad Hominem Fallacies and Epistemic Credibility....Pages 19-35
On the Absence of Evidence....Pages 37-51
The Uses of Slippery Slope Argument....Pages 53-65
Institutional Constraints of Topical Strategic Maneuvering in Legal Argumentation. The Case of ‘Insulting’....Pages 67-75
One-Sided Argumentation in the Defense of Marriage Act....Pages 77-91
Front Matter....Pages 93-93
Anti-Theoretical Claims About Legal Interpretation: The Argument Behind the Fallacy....Pages 95-110
Frames of Interpretations and the Container-Retrieval View: Reflections on a Theoretical Contest....Pages 111-128
Argument Structures in Legal Interpretation: Balancing and Thresholds....Pages 129-150
An Analysis of Some Juristic Techniques for Handling Systematic Defects in the Law....Pages 151-177
Argumentation from Reasonableness in the Justification of Judicial Decisions....Pages 179-201
Legal Argumentation and Theories of Adjudication in the U.S. Legal Tradition: A Critical View of Cass Sunstein’s Minimalism, Richard Posner’s Pragmatism and Ronald Dworkin’s Advocacy of Integrity....Pages 203-218
Back Matter....Pages 219-222

✦ Subjects

Theories of Law, Philosophy of Law, Legal History; Philosophy of Law