This insightful and highly readable Advanced Introduction provides a succinct, yet comprehensive, overview of legal reasoning, covering both reasoning from canonical texts and legal decision-making in the absence of rules. Overall, it argues that there are only two methods by which judges decide legal disputes: deductive reasoning from rules and unconstrained moral, practical, and empirical reasoning.

• discussion and analysis of the interpretive methods used in legal decision-making
• guidance for the reader through the debates on analogical reasoning and construction of legal principles
• a defense of intention-based interpretation of legal rules and natural reasoning in law.
• This Advanced Introduction will be an invaluable resource for students looking for an overview of the subject. It will also be useful for legal practitioners, scholars, and judges.