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Law and Method


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Access_open Editorial

Special Issue Experimental Legislation in Times of Crisis, Sofia Ranchordás & Bart van Klink (eds.)

Authors Sofia Ranchordás and Bart van Klink
Author's information

Sofia Ranchordás
Sofia Ranchordás is Full Professor of EU and Comparative Public Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands and Associate Professor of Public Law, Innovation, and Sustainability at the Faculty of Law, LUISS Guido Carli, Italy.

Bart van Klink
Bart van Klink is Professor of Legal Methodology, Faculty of Law, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Article

Access_open On Identifying Assumptions Underlying Legal Arrangements

Some Conceptual and Methodological Considerations

Keywords (Legislative) assumptions, legal arrangements, inference to the best explanation, theory-driven evaluations
Authors Frans L. Leeuw and Antonia M. Waltermann
AbstractAuthor's information

    Legal arrangements rest on behavioural, cognitive, social, and other assumptions regarding their role and function in society and the legal system. The identification and subsequent evaluation of these assumptions is an important task for legal scholarship. In this article, we focus on the identification and categorisation of these assumptions, providing conceptual distinctions and methodological guidance. We distinguish between assumptions about the value(s), norm(s), or interest(s) underlying a legal arrangement, which can be legal or non-legal, and assumptions about the relationship between the legal arrangement and its underlying value(s), norm(s), or interest(s), which can be logical, causal, or contributory. Regarding the identification, we consider explicit references and inference to the best explanation and theory-driven evaluations as possible methods. Inference to the best explanation, we posit, functions as a manner of reconstructing the theory that the person(s) creating a legal arrangement had in mind regarding the place and function of that legal arrangement in society. Given this, we offer a step-by-step approach to reconstructing this theory in use, drawing from theory-driven evaluations and its sources in the social sciences. These distinctions and guidelines can contribute to understanding the context and untangling the complexities involved in identifying the assumptions that underlie legal arrangements.


Frans L. Leeuw
Prof. dr. Frans Leeuw, Professor emeritus, Law, Public Policy and Social Science Research, Department of Foundations and Methods of Law, Maastricht University.

Antonia M. Waltermann
Dr. Antonia Waltermann, Assistant Professor of Legal Theory, Department of Foundations and Methods of Law, Maastricht University.
Article

Access_open The Development of Moral Reasoning in the Law Curriculum - An Exploration of Various Teaching Activities

Special issue on Education in (Professional) Legal Ethics, Emanuel van Dongen & Jet Tigchelaar (eds.)

Keywords moral reasoning, legal education, scholarship of teaching and learning, defining issues test
Authors Emanuel van Dongen and Steven Raaijmakers
AbstractAuthor's information

    Developing the capacity for moral judgment is an essential professional competence for lawyers. What teaching and learning activities in the law curriculum can be used in order to contribute to students’ moral reasoning and moral judgment? Four teaching methods were tried out in the period 2019 to 2021 at the Utrecht University School of Law: teaching methods that either work with (hypothetical) dilemmas (I); in-class reflection papers (II); experiential learning based on own experiences in a simulation situation (III); or clinical teaching in a real law firm (IV). The effects of these methods on the development of moral reasoning were measured using the Defining Issues Test (DIT). Additional information on the effectiveness and utility of the method was gathered using semi-structured interviews with teachers. The DIT results were compared at the beginning and at the end of the courses and related to the teaching methods. This article presents the outcomes of this study and formulates some recommendations for further research on the topic.


Emanuel van Dongen
Dr. Emanuel van Dongen is Associated Professor Private Law at the Molengraaff Institute for Private Law, researcher at the Utrecht Centre for Accountability and Liability Law and the Montaigne Centre for Rule of Law and Administration of Justice, Utrecht School of Law.

Steven Raaijmakers
Dr. Steven Raaijmakers is an educational consultant with Educational Consultancy & Professional Development, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University.
Article

Access_open Legal Philosophy as an Enrichment of Doctrinal Research – Part II: The Purposes of Including Legal Philosophy

Keywords legal philosophy, research methods, interdisciplinary research, conceptual analysis
Authors Sanne Taekema and Wibren van der Burg
AbstractAuthor's information

    Many doctrinal legal research questions require making use of other academic disciplines or perspectives. This article explains the relevance of legal philosophy for doctrinal research projects. Often legal research questions have conceptual or evaluative dimensions that presuppose philosophical understanding. For research on the concept of democracy, the function of constitutional rights, or the possible introduction of a referendum in the Netherlands, questions of a philosophical nature need to be answered. Legal philosophy can supplement and enrich doctrinal research in various ways. In this article, we present seven purposes that legal philosophy may serve in the context of a doctrinal research project: conceptual clarification, exposition and reconstruction of fundamental normative principles and values, theory building, providing creative perspectives, structural critiques, evaluation, and recommendations. For each objective, we illustrate how to use relevant philosophical methods. Thus, this article complements our earlier publication ‘Legal Philosophy as an Enrichment of Doctrinal Research – Part I: Introducing Three Philosophical Methods’.1x http://www.lawandmethod.nl/tijdschrift/lawandmethod/2020/01/lawandmethod-D-19-00006.

Noten

  • * This text has been presented to classes at the University of Zagreb, Queen Mary University of London and Erasmus School of Law, Rotterdam; we profited from the feedback of our students. We also want to thank Irma Bluijs, Machteld Geuskens, Tamar de Waal and the reviewers for their helpful comments on previous versions of this article, and Jacqueline Brand and Robert Poll for providing research assistance.
  • 1 http://www.lawandmethod.nl/tijdschrift/lawandmethod/2020/01/lawandmethod-D-19-00006.


Sanne Taekema
Prof. mr. dr. Sanne Taekema is Professor of Jurisprudence, Erasmus School of Law, Rotterdam.

Wibren van der Burg
Prof. dr. mr. Wibren van der Burg, is Professor of Legal Philosophy, Erasmus School of Law, Rotterdam.