What does it mean when a judge in a court of law uses the phrase “common sense”? Is it a type of evidence or a mode of reasoning? In a world characterized by material and political inequalities, whose common sense should inform the law? Common Sense and Legal Judgment explores this rhetorically powerful phrase, arguing that common sense, when invoked in political and legal discourses without adequate reflection, poses a threat to the quality and legitimacy of legal judgment. Often operating in the service of conservatism, populism, or majoritarianism, common sense can harbour stereotypes, reproduce unjust power relations, and silence marginalized people. Nevertheless, drawing the works of theorists such as Thomas Reid, Antonio Gramsci, and Hannah Arendt into conversation with rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada, Patricia Cochran demonstrates that with careful attention, the democratic, egalitarian, and community-sustaining aspects of common sense can be brought to light. A call for critical self-reflection and the close scrutiny of power relationships and social contexts, this book is a direct response to social justice predicaments and their confounding relationships to law. Creative and interdisciplinary, Common Sense and Legal Judgment reinvigorates feminist and anti-poverty understandings of judgment, knowledge, justice, and accountability.

Integrating research methods from Linguistics with contemporary Legal Argumentation Theory, this book highlights the complexities of legal justification by focusing on the role of value-laden language in argument construction and use. The combination of linguistic analysis and the pragma-dialectic approach to legal argumentation yields a new way of perceiving and understanding the phenomenon of evaluation, one that offers theoretical and practical gains. Analyzing a vast corpus of judicial opinions from the United States Supreme Court and Poland’s Constitutional Court, the book paints a clear picture of complex linguistic choices made by judges to assess and support arguments in the justifications of their decisions. The book will be of interest to scholars in Law, Linguistics and Rhetoric, as well as to judges and practicing lawyers engaged in the art of argumentation.

A comprehensive, up-to-date examination of the most important theory, concepts, methodological approaches, and applications in the burgeoning field of judgment and decision making (JDM) Emphasizes the growth of JDM applications with chapters devoted to medical decision making, decision making and the law, consumer behavior, and more Addresses controversial topics from multiple perspectives – such as choice from description versus choice from experience – and contrasts between empirical methodologies employed in behavioral economics and psychology Brings together a multi-disciplinary group of contributors from across the social sciences, including psychology, economics, marketing, finance, public policy, sociology, and philosophy 2 Volumes

This detailed analysis offers new perspectives on rhetoric and law from distinguished scholars.

Judgment is simple, right? This book begs to differ. Written for all students of the law—from undergraduate to supreme court justice—it opens the reader to a broad landscape of ideas surrounding common law judgment. Short and accessible, it touches upon the many pathways that lead out from the phenomenon of judgment in common law jurisdictions. This book is unique in its brevity and scope. It engages not only with the core operation of judgment as legal decision, but considers questions of authority and reason, and broader issues of interpretation, rhetoric, and judicial improvisation. The aim of this book is not to present a summary of research or a comprehensive ‘theory’ of judgment, nor is it bounded by the divisions of different legal subjects. Instead, it is a handbook or companion for students of the law to read and return to in their studious journeys across all common law topic areas, providing readers with a robust and open-ended set of tools, combined with selected further readings, to facilitate their own discovery, exploration, and critical analysis of the rich tapestry of common law judgment.