Legal knowledge based systems JURIX 94 The Relation with Legal Theory

Arti cial intelligence has contributed fundamentally to our understanding of reasoning and communication processes, and especially their limits. These insights have deep implications for issues in jurisprudence which depend on a model of `correct' reasoning and argumentation, such as theories of the separation of powers and judicial discretion. Some of these implications are explored in this paper, by using arti cial intelligence models to critically evaluate several historically important theories of judicial discretion, including German Conceptualism, American Realism, Hart's theory of clear cases, R odig's version of `legal logic' and, nally, Alexy's procedural theory of legal justi cation.