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Fundamentals of Legal Argumentation pp 73–91Cite as

MacCormick’s Theory of the Justification of Legal Decisions

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Part of the book series: Argumentation Library ((ARGA,volume 1))

Abstract

Neil MacCormick focuses on the question of what constitutes a rational justification of a legal decision. MacCormick’s most important book on this subject is Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory (1978). In it, MacCormick examines the requirements for legal decisions. He investigates criteria used in actual legal practice to distinguish well-founded from ill-founded justifications. He also inquires whether, from a normative perspective, these criteria are adequate for assessing the quality of legal decisions.

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References

  1. See MacCormick (1978:13, 77 and 1981:105).

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  2. See MacCormick (1978:25–27).

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  3. See also MacCormick (1978:63–65, 233, 240–241).

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  4. See MacCormick (1978:272).

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  5. See MacCormick (1978:67–68).

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  6. See MacCorrick (1978:67–68).

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  7. MacCormick uses the terms ‘defender’, ‘pursuer’ and ‘respondent’ to refer to the parties in a law case.

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  8. See MacCormick (1978:72).

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  9. MacCormick (1978:97–99) observes that the requirement of ‘equity’ in a concrete case should not be understood as something particular by contrast to the universalizabilityof justice. When formal rules of positive law chance to produce injustice in their application, the creation of exceptions to the law for classes of situations to which there is good reason not to apply the law can be justified. However, the exception should be universal.

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  10. See MacCormick (1978:81).

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  11. See MacCormick (1978:95).

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  12. See MacCormick (1978:119–128).

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  13. See MacCormick (1978:111).

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  14. See MacCormick (1978:142–143).

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  15. MacCormick (1978:115–116) argues that the focus of consequentialist arguments is on the consequences of rival rulings (`rule utilitarianism’) in similar cases, and not on the consequences for the particular parties of the particular decision `act utilitarianism’.

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  16. See MacCormick (1978:159).

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  17. See MacCormick (1978:170).

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  18. See MacCormick (1978:192).

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  19. See MacCormick (1978:161–163).

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  20. See MacCormick (1978:220–221). (1978:250–251).

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  21. See MacCormick .

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  22. Cf. Alexy (1989:220–295) who specifies how the various argument forms for the external justification constitute a specific implementation of the general schema for the internal justification (which, in turn, is a specific implementation of the schema for practical argumentation).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory, and Rhetoric, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Eveline T. Feteris

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  1. Eveline T. Feteris
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© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Feteris, E.T. (1999). MacCormick’s Theory of the Justification of Legal Decisions. In: Fundamentals of Legal Argumentation. Argumentation Library, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9219-2_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9219-2_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5175-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9219-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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