Riflessioni sul ragionamento giudiziale (a partire dalla teoria di Manuel Atienza)

The essay analyzes some ideas that compound the complex theory oflegal reasoning defended by Manuel Atienza. The aim is twofold: on theone hand, I want to discuss these ideas; and on the other hand I want toshow that some of these ideas can be usefully articulated and deployedalso outside the specific framework of Atienza’s legal theory (i.e., “law asargumentation”). In particular, I will first discuss some definitions and distinctionsproposed by Atienza about legal reasoning; and then I will focuson Atienza’s criticism on the traditional distinction between the context ofdiscovery and the context of justification of judicial decisions. In this regard,I will try to argue that Atienza’s proposal is indeed interesting and thatit is also possible to articulate it in a somewhat different way.