Defence of Rule-Deductivism

Abstract

Many legal theorists subscribe to the claim that the legal syllogism has a role in justification of legal decisions. A challenge to this thesis is put forward in Luis Duarte d’Almeida’s essay “On the Legal Syllogism”. This article aims to examine Luis Duarte d’Almeida’s arguments against rule-deductivism in order to refine the theoretical understanding of the role that the legal syllogism has in the justification of legal decisions. In this article, three main research methods have been used: the descriptive, the deductive, and the analytical method. The examination of Luis Duarte d’Almeida’s arguments against rule-deductivism results in several conclusions. Firstly, the general argument against rule-deductivism fails because of some faulty assumptions about the scope of the major premise in respect to the scope of the statutory rule entailed by its ratio legis, i.e. that this adherence must be perfect when the judge is expanding the scope of the statutory rule by referring to the general purpose of the rule. Secondly, the critique of the first notion of rule-deductivism is effective, but only insofar as one also adheres to several contentious assumptions that are held by some rule-deductivists, but are not essential to rule-deductivism.