On Judicial Reasoning

Legal reasoning,one of the basic problems of legal philosophy,has early establishedits status and value in western jurisprudence. In our country,scholars have made initialstudy on it.Judicial reasoning ,as the most typical legal reasoning,is not only a way ofenhancing legal thinking quality of numerous judicial workers,but also justifies thelegitimacy of judicial decision.So that it differs rule of law from rule of people.Thispaper will make a study on the application of judicial reasoning in judicial practice onthe base of the present condition of our country. This paper consists of six parts. Part One,introduction.Some relative problems of the thesis of the paper areintroduced in this part through description of people's common reflection on legalreasoning. Part Two,the status of legal reasoning and reasons of forming this condition.Thestatus and value of legal reasoning in western jurisprudence have early established:itbecame the hot topic of study in 1960s,consequently some papers and works about legalreasoning were published.In China,between the 20th century and the 21th century,thetextbook of jurisprudence first set a special chapter for legal reasoning.This paperanalyses the philosophycial reason and the social reason of forming this condition. Part Three,denifition of legal reasoning.The paper first analyses the relationbetween law and logic,and what is legal logic before denifition.Because these problemsdirectly relate to the denifition of legal reasoning. Part Four,judicial reasoning.This part is the core of this Paper.The one deeplynanlyses judicial reasoning from the traditional view of point---formal legal reasoningand material legal reasoning.In this part,the author demonstrates that judicial reasoningsupplies legitimate reason of judicial decision:first,legitimacy of judicial reasoningrequires that the reasons used in judicial reasoning must be legalones,ie,legality;Second,legitimacy of judicial reasoning requires general acceptance ofjudicial decision by the public,ie rationality. Part Five,function of legal reasoning and reconsideration on its use.The authorexpounds three main functions of legal reasoning and emphasizes the realistic meaningsof study and application of legal reasonings,especially at present and under thecondition of advocating "rule state of law." Part Six,conclusion.This part sums up the whole paper,and points out we shouldmore deeply study legal reasoning in the future.