On the Argumentum Ad Absurdum in Statutory Interpretation: Its Uses and Normative Significance
LEGAL ARGUMENTATION THEORY: CROSS-DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES, C. Dalhman, E. Feteris, eds., Springer, 2013
27 Pages Posted: 7 Mar 2012 Last revised: 10 Sep 2014
Date Written: March 7, 2012
Abstract
The ad absurdum argument can be understood either as a strictly logical tool, which is equivalent to a proof by contradiction, or as a pragmatic argument about the desirability or undesirability of a given proposition. Yet in legal reasoning lawyers tend to use it, at least in the vast majority of cases, only in the latter sense. The argumentum ad absurdum, as I will argue, can be classified as a special kind of pragmatic argument whose specific feature is its special argumentative strength in comparison with generic consequentialist argumentation. Once we are able to grant that premise, the paper intends to explain the most important rules of interpretation that may be used to determine the conditions under which the ad absurdum argument can be correctly deployed in legal reasoning.
Keywords: absurdity, argumentation, law, reduction, normative significance, rationality, rules, interpretation, performative contradictions, consequentialism
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation