Preference-Based Reasoning: Rules

Abstract

In Chapters 7 and 8 we shall examine an aspect of legal cognition that integrates the main forms of reasoning we have so far considered: rule-based defeasible reasoning, teleological reasoning, and factor-based reasoning. This is preferencebased reasoning, by which we mean addressing conflicts of reasons by taking into account the relative importance of such reasons, on the basis of the weight of the elements they include: rules, values, and factors. We have already considered how to take into account the relative importance of values in Section 5.2 on page 150. Therefore, we shall now focus on rules, and address factors in the next chapter.