Introduction to Legal Logic and Reasoning
Logic
Definition
The logical study of thoughts.
- Natural Logic: Innate aptitude present in every human being, to a greater or lesser degree, allowing the combination of thoughts in an orderly and coherent manner.
- Scientific Rationale: The study, with scientific rigor, of the combination of thought-forms, which aims to obtain correct and true thoughts.
- Formal Logic: The study of the conditions to develop right thinking.
- Material Logic: The study of the conditions to make thoughts real.
Types of Thoughts
- Right Thoughts: Those made in accordance with the principles of logic.
- True Thoughts: Those that are congruent with reality.
Legal Concepts
Paradigmatic Uses of the Term “Legal”
- System: A set of mandatory rules and attributes that govern the conduct of human beings in society and are guaranteed by the state.
- Faculty: Ability to lawfully act or refrain from acting.
- Sense Values: To qualify a person or conduct as straight or right.
Legal System Features
- Institutional: Its creation, modification, and implementation are carried out by representatives of the state.
- Exclusive: Precludes the application of a different legal system unless expressly permitted.
- Standards: Sets behavioral requirements.
- Coercive: Its application is guaranteed by the state, even against the subject’s will, including the use of public force.
Constitution
The set of postulates and principles that express the institutional organization of a State, establishing state bodies, their powers, and the relationship between these and the governed. It is the regulatory body with supremacy and primacy, establishing the legal and political structure of a State.
Mental Forms and Processes
- Mental Form: Mode of thought.
- Mental Ways:
- Idea: Representation of a thing without affirming or denying anything.
- Trial: Statement (S is P) or denial (S is not P) of one idea over another.
- Rationale: Obtaining new knowledge from prior knowledge.
Propositions
Use concrete language that refers to reality, and as matching or not, this is true or false.
Proposition Regulations: The use of language that contains the subject’s will (State).
- Dogma: Postulate accepted unreservedly.
Dogmatic Law
Legal knowledge with the following characteristics:
- Subject: Its subject is a particular legal system, endowed with force. (A legal norm is valid as it is mandatory in space and time).
- Subject to Issues Propositions: The person issuing the proposals is the recipient of the rules, accepted as legal, and has regulatory discretion of conduct.
And has the following functions:
- Provide criteria for the creation, modification, and enforcement (executive, legislative, and judiciary) of the law.
- Provide criteria for developing the conceptual system inherent in those roles.
Scientific Knowledge
This knowledge has the following characteristics:
- Universal: Formula valid propositions outside of place and time conditions.
- Strength: Withstands the test.
- Fallible: Liable to error. (It represents the best response to anything at this time).
- Rationale: Knowledge that explains the relationship of phenomena from their root causes.
- Systematic: Has a particular method, and as a whole, has order and coherence.
- Objective: Sticks to reality, is not made from subjective positions.
Principles
A content that determines other content.
Logical Principles
Postulates with the following characteristics:
- Clear: In terms of their nature, require no explanation.
- Rational: Derived from reason and form.
- Regulatory: Parameters of thought.
- Transcendent: Present in every mental operation.
Principle of Identity: “What is, is.”
Principle of Contradiction: “One thing cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same respect.”
Principle of Excluded Middle: “Between two contradictory propositions, there is no middle ground.”
(Contradictory propositions are those which are mutually exclusive and complete).
Principle of Sufficient Reason: “Everything has a reason.”
Legal Logic and Branches of Government
Legal Logic
The study of thought-forms (Idea, Judgment, and Reasoning) in the creation, modification, and application of law, as well as the development of the conceptual system inherent in those roles.
Legislative Branch
Activity by the State, consisting essentially of the creation and modification of the legal order.
Judicial Function
Activity by the State, involving the application of the legal system to resolve legal disputes and clarify doubtful legal situations.
Executive Function
Activity undertaken by the State, comprising the application of law to satisfy general interest.
The State
The legal and political expression of a nation with the following characteristics:
- National: Represents the legal and political expression of a community, more or less homogeneous, which shares cultural characteristics, language, a common past, a sense of belonging, and distinction from other communities.
- Right: The exercise of public power is regulated and subject to legal order.
- Sovereign: The power held by the state takes precedence over other branches.
- Lay: The legal and political organization lacks an official confession, acknowledging the subject’s freedom to decide whether to practice any religion and, in that case, determine which.
Authority and the Ruled
Authority: Representative of the state entity, which has the authority to alter the legal status.
Ruled: Entity susceptible to acts of authority.
Principles of Legality
Principle of Legality: The constitutional postulate states that in business, the state is restricted to what the Act expressly authorizes.
A Contrario: The governed is in a position to act in all ways not prohibited by law.
Found: Obligation to cite authority precisely in the legal rules, nouns, and adjectives, which serve as the basis for issuing the act.
Motivate: Obligation to cite authority precisely in the circumstances, specific reasons, and immediate causes, which serve as the basis for issuing the act and bearing a matching relationship with the hypothesis put forward by legislation as a foundation.
The relationship between motivation and fitness foundation is expressed logically and legally.
Legal Language
The language of the legislature, the jurist, and the judge. In each of these areas, the legal language has certain identifiable characteristics.
Regulatory Language: “The language we use to perform acts such as prohibiting, allowing, excusing, justifying, allocating, or recognizing rights, to say that someone has (or has no) competition, a right, responsibility, duties and imposed obligations, to say that something made by someone is (or is not) a breach, or that it deserves (or does not deserve) a reward or punishment.”
Specialized Language: “It is the specific language used by some professionals and experts to convey information and refine the terms, concepts, and knowledge in a particular area of expertise, confirming the existing, qualifying the scope of its application, and modifying all or part of it.”