LAW 732 - Comparative Legal Reasoning

Institution:

Duke University

Subject:

Law

Description:

This seminar will examine differences in the method and style of legal reasoning between continental legal systems and common-law legal systems. We will start by trying to establish what, in each of those systems, would be considered the ideal form of legal argumentation; that is the type of reasoning that would be addressed to what Chaim Perelman, and Jurgen Habermas following Perelman, called a "universal audience." We shall also explore the question of how each of these types of legal systems copes with the tensions between the utopian desire for broad general principles of law and the pragmatic recognition that the law deals with concrete situations that require a more particular and narrowly focused doctrinal base. Throughout the seminar we shall be exploring how the structure and forms of legal and moral reasoning that is accepted as appropriate by particular society are influenced by the underlying value structure of that society and in turn actually influence and shape the value structure of that society. Instructors: Christie and Haarscher

Credits:

2.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Seminar

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

WWW.DUKE.EDU

Phone Number:

(919) 684-8111

Regional Accreditation:

Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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