Papas, Keziah Cyra B.

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Legal Technique and Logic, EH 301

THE ROLE OF LOGIC IN JUDICIAL DECISIONS

Like how it does to all matters human, logic binds itself as an essential
tool that helps us decipher all things legal, simple or complex. It is an instrument
that our minds automatically accessorize to all things that provokes thinking
again, legal or not. As Claude Bernard put it, In every enterprisethe mind is
always reasoning, and, even when we seem to act without a motive, an
instinctive logic still directs the mind. Only we are not aware of it, because we
begin by reasoning before we know or say that we are reasoning, just as we
begin by speaking before we observe that we are speaking, and just as we begin
by seeing and hearing before we know what we see or what we hear. Today, we
are to focus on the role of logic in judicial decisions.

Before we delve into the actual matter I aforementioned, let me define the
terms that even a layman may read through my essay with no difficulty.

So, what is indeed logic?

Ambrose Bierce defined logic as the art of thinking and reasoning in strict
accordance with the limitations and incapacities of human understanding. This
definition could not be truer to the matter at handjudicial decisions. I will
expound more on this subject later. But before I do, let me now spell out the
meaning of judicial decisions.

What makes judicial decisions?

Judicial decision, in common terms, is any determination involving the

application of legal thinking. Basically, judicial decision is legal reasoning.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.a household name in both philosophy and

lawonce said, The language of judicial decision is mainly the language of
logic. And the logical method and form flatter that longing for certainty and for
repose, which is in every human mind. But certainty generally is illusion, and
repose is not the destiny of man. As pointed out earlier, logic is restricted to the
objective nature of ones mind. Ones logical interpretation of a thing may well
be different from that of anothers. In a juridical sense, one trained legal mind
may construe what seems to be basic into something more profound. And we are
then presented with a myriad of contradictions, but this is where logic comes
into play. These different interpretations will be unified by a collective logical
Papas, Keziah Cyra B. Page {PAGE } of 2
Legal Technique and Logic, EH 301

reasoning and then yields into something universal that every rational man may
see eye to eye with.

To be logical means to be rational. Further, to reach in a conclusion,

especially relating to matters legal, all positions must come in terms with the
factualthe reasonable. Thus, every judicial decision roots from rational, critical
thinking.

Likewise, as a trained legal mind, we are unconsciously habituated into its

modes. We were always taught to be liberal when needed, strict to interpret
when the occasion calls for it. Again, this is logic. Additionally, what seems to be
simple, logic commands us to dissect it and so in turn we are presented the
whys and howsthe primary aids to reaching a logical judicial decision.

No decision then, whatever it concerns with, may ever come into existence
without even the smallest application of logic.