Abstract

In this paper the author criticizes the way Robert Alexy reconstructs the relationship between legal and practical reasoning. The core of Alexy's argumentation (Alexy 1978) is considered the claim that legal argumentation is a “special case” of general practical discourse. In order to question this claim, the author analyzes three different types of argument: (1) that legal reasoning is needed by general practical discourse itself, (2) that there are similarities between legal argumentation and general practical discourse, (3) that there is a correspondence between certain types of argument in general practical discourse and in legal argumentation.**