ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, COHERENCE AND JUDICIAL REASONING
The workshop’s goals
The concept of coherence has played a great role in contemporary epistemology as a key issue related to justification of beliefs. Also in the field of jurisprudence prominent scholars devoted much attention to theoretical elaboration of the role of this concept in legal reasoning, to mention Ronald Dworkin, Alexander Peczenik and Neil MacCormick. Nowadays, legal-theoretical investigations concerning the concept in question can be and often are supported by rigorous formal tools developed in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Law. In particular, the conceptions inspired by constraint satisfaction account of coherence, receive considerable attention in recent years. Constraint satisfaction theory is, of course, only one among many possible approaches to the problem. The main aim of the workshop is to summarize the present state of these investigations, to indicate the weak points within the existing proposals and to formulate new perspectives for investigations in the relevant field.
In particular, the following topics are interesting points for discussion:
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possible accounts of the very concept of coherence in judicial reasoning: the relation between coherence and consistency; coherence as dimensional or binary concept; constraint satisfaction theory of coherence and competing proposals; formal versus substantive accounts of coherence; coherence as a legal concept or as a meta-legal concept.
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types of (in)coherence relations within judicial discourse concerning norms. Relations of support and attack between legal arguments, norms, principles, value judgments and other types of statements employed in legal discourse. The concept of coherence in theory construction in case-based reasoning. The comparison of relevant argumentative schemes employed by judges in civil law countries and common law countries.
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the role of the highest courts in establishing coherence in legal system (in particular, in the cases of legislative errors). Argumentative schemes employed in judicial review cases performed by the US Supreme Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union.
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coherence of legal norms and coherence of legal concepts. Legal reasoning and legal conceptual schemes. Conceptual change in the field of law. The relations between different legal conceptual systems. Conceptual frameworks developed by the judiciary as opposed to conceptual frameworks developed by legal doctrine.
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autonomy of theories of judicial reasoning versus their integration with political, ethical, economic and other theories. The role of these ‘external’ theories and their conceptual frameworks in legal reasoning, in particular in doctrinal and judicial reasoning.
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axiological coherence of legal system developed by the judiciary as a problem of jurisprudence. Formal models for value-based argumentation in reasoning with cases and with rules.
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the role of coherence in reasoning concerning facts & evidence. The relation between the framework of legal procedures and argumentative schemes employed in this reasoning. The comparison between explanatory reasoning in the field of questions of law and questions of fact.
Workshop format
Half-day workshop consisting of research presentations. Plenary discussion. Main focus on the role of the methodological role of the concept of coherence in relevant research and the issues of computational aspects of the discussed models.
The intended audience.
Members of AI & Law community interested in theories of legal coherence, judicial reasoning, connectionist models of reasoning, formal logic.
