A Teleological Approach to Legal Dialogues

Abstract

This paper aims at connecting two ideas that play a fundamental role in Robert Alexy’s theory of legal reasoning, namely, on the one hand the idea of a dialogue and on the other hand the idea of a value (a goal to be realised in the political and legal domain). In particular, I shall argue that goal-oriented (teleological) considerations can contribute to determining the structure of dialectical interactions. Correspondingly, it is possible identify a variety of teleologically justified kinds of legal dialogues.