LEGAL LOGIC: ORIGIN, CONCEPT, OBJECT OF STUDY - ARTE - 2025

The legal logic is the science that studies and analyzes the thoughts and texts related to the right from a logical point of view. Its objective is to achieve coherence between the theory and the practice of everything concerning the norms, their application and the administration of justice, in order to guarantee fairness.

For this, this discipline examines the forms, structures and schemes of legal reasoning, to distinguish between valid discourse from that which is not. In this way, it allows us to understand and order the language that concerns the law and interpret its resolutions from good sense.

Legal logic starts from the precept that the law and its activity must be rational. Source: pixabay.com

This analysis is applied both to the set of norms and laws that regulate life within a community and to the arguments and sentences of the officials in charge of interpreting and enforcing them.

Historical origin

Although antecedents existed in the Chinese and Indian civilizations, Aristotle (384-322 BC) is distinguished as the father of logic. In his treatises, the Greek thinker developed the first methodical investigation on the principles of legitimate argument and its application in the world of philosophy and science.

In addition, he introduced the concept of the syllogism, analyzed the importance of inductive reasoning, and developed a systematic study of fallacies.

On the other hand, it is considered that modern logic was born in the mid-19th century, by the hand of the German mathematician Friedrich Gottlob Frege (1848-1926).

This thinker devised a program to investigate the rational and philosophical structures of mathematics and natural language, which was later continued and expanded by Bertrand Russell, Giuseppe Peano, Alfred Tarski, Kurt Gödel and Jan Łukasiewicz, among others.

During the 20th century, many sciences began to apply the methods of logic as a tool to arrive at a valid form of reasoning within their disciplines.

These include mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, computer science, physics, sociology and also law, which gave rise to what is now known as legal logic.

Concept and object of study

Legal logic can be defined as an exploration technique to understand law, which is based on the analysis and evaluation of its forms and schemes from the point of view of reason.

Its object of study are the thoughts and legal texts of all kinds, seeking that the arguments used in their exercise are valid and congruent.

This discipline starts from the precept that law and legal activity must be rational. Thus, each rule and each decision of the jurists must be argued from logic.

In any trial, the presentation of the facts by the lawsuit, the defense strategy and the drafting of the determining points of the sentence in the hands of the judge must be based on a sensible and coherent thought.

The same is the creation of laws and their legal justification for sanctioning them.

Definition

According to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), the word "logic" refers to facts or events that have antecedents that justify them. In addition, it also refers to the science that exposes the laws, modes and forms of propositions in relation to their truth or falsity.

For its part, "legal" is everything that concerns the law or conforms to it.

Principles of legal logic

By logical principles are understood to be those basic norms that underpin thought processes and ensure their validity. It is about 4 general and obvious rules, through which reasoning is built.

They are: the principle of identity, the principle of contradiction, the principle of exclusion of the middle term and the principle of sufficient reason.

Identity principle

This principle refers to the fact that every object is identical to itself and is explained with the formula "A is A".

From the point of view of legal logic, the law that allows what is not prohibited, or prohibits what is not allowed, is valid.

Principle of contradiction

This principle refers to the impossibility of two contradictory thoughts or judgments being true at the same time. It is explained with the following formula: "A is A" and "A is not A" cannot both be correct.

From the point of view of legal logic, two opposing laws cannot work at the same time. If one allows a behavior and another prohibits it, one of the two is wrong.

Principle of the excluded third

Following the line of the previous principle, this affirms that two contradictory thoughts or judgments cannot be false at the same time. Logically, one of the two has to be true.

It is explained with the following formula: "A is A" and "A is not A" cannot both be false. Either it is or it is not, there cannot be a third possibility.

From the point of view of legal logic, two conflicting laws cannot be wrong at the same time. One of them must be valid and the existence of a third norm that is true in the middle of the two is excluded.

Principle of sufficient reason

This principle holds that all knowledge must have its foundation.

From the point of view of legal logic, imposed laws must have a motive or rationale for their design and implementation.

Legal logic according to Kalinowski

Georges Kalinowski (1916-2000) was a Polish philosopher considered one of the founders of contemporary deontic logic.

It refers to the reasoning of laws and normative ideas and he defined it as that which "studies the formal constant relationships that exist between normative propositions, whatever the norms are signified by those propositions."

In his book Introduction to Legal Logic (1965) Kalinowski distinguished between three types of legal reasoning: the logical, the para-logical and the extra logical.

Logical legal reasoning

In this group he included thoughts of intellectual compulsion, governed by formal logical rules.

These could be: a) normative, when at least one of the premises and the conclusion were rules or laws; b) non-normative, when they were legal only by accident.

Para-logical legal reasoning

Here he brought together the ideas submitted to the criteria of persuasion and rhetorical argumentation, used both by the lawsuit to present a case, lawyers to defend the accused, and judges to justify their sentences and decisions.

Extra logical legal reasoning

In this category it encompassed those reasoning of a normative nature that, beyond logic, also sought to reach feasible conclusions through purely legal principles.

These could be based on presumptions or prescriptions established by law.

Applications, scope and limits of legal logic

Legal logic is an exploration technique to understand law, which is based on the analysis of its forms from the point of view of reason. Source: pixabay.com

Within the law, logic has three main fields of action: the production and evaluation of norms, the analysis of the ways of reasoning in decrees and sentences, as well as the investigation of legal problems, with the aim of distinguishing their causes. and propose possible solutions.

Production and evaluation of standards

Logical thinking is applied to analyze the power from which a rule emanates and the objective that is intended to be achieved with its dictation and application.

This premise starts from the concept that every law must be a rule of behavior established by reason. Based on this, it is understood that there are two classes of norms: those that are rationally explained by their analytical certainty and those that do so through a test.

At the same time, the logic is also used to evaluate the possibility that these laws are susceptible to modification.

Analysis of decrees and sentences

Logic also makes it possible to examine and interpret the forms of reasoning applied at the time of issuing decrees and sentences by law officials.

It is a guarantee so that the judicial processes are truthful, fair and legitimate, and the decisions that are taken balanced, impartial and objective.

Investigation of legal problems

Finally, legal logic can be applied to address conflicts of a scientific and philosophical nature in law, such as abortion, the right to life, euthanasia, cloning, genetic manipulation, and the death penalty, among other issues.

In this sense, reasoning is understood as the clearest way to reach a solution to the problems that arise.

Limits of legal logic

If a rule is thought to be rational, then so should its application and interpretation. However, practice shows us that legal logic has its limits and that the results obtained are not always as expected.

For example, how is it possible that, faced with the same fact and based on the same laws, two courts reach different conclusions? Why can one judge be blamed and the other innocent?

This is because the logical meaning of a judicial process is not always correctly reflected by language, which is sometimes limited by the lack of precision or the ambiguity of the words and sentences.

In addition, between the formal truth and the real truth there are divisions that make its application difficult and that are colored by emotions, experiences, feelings and impulses that go beyond reason.

Therefore, due to its rigidity, legal logic cannot be the only method of evaluation and application in the law, but rather function as a complement.

References

1. Kalinowki, Georges (1965). Introduction à la Logique Juridique. Paris, LGDJ. France.
2. Copi, Irving M. (2007). Introduction to logic. Limusa. Mexico.
3. Carrión, Roque (2007). Legal logic: on the use of logic in legal justifying reasoning and the teaching of positive law. University of Carabobo. Valencia. Venezuela.
4. García Maynes, Eduardo (1951). Introduction to Legal Logic. Economic Culture Fund, Mexico.
5. Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE). Available at: rae.es