validity of adopting the outcome suggested. In the court room, both parties put forward arguments and the judge chooses the argument that is either the most persuasive or that is the closest to the judge’s own belief concerning the outcome of the case. So far, in this text, there have been opportunities to read judgments and the judges have presented their decisions in the form of reasoned responses to the questions posed by the case. In the classroom, students are constantly called upon to practise and refine their skills in legal problem solving by engaging in reasoning processes leading to full scale argument construction. For the practising lawyer, a valid argument is of the utmost importance. Decisions as to right action can only be made by people who are able to distinguish between competing arguments and determine that, in a given set of circumstances, one argument is more valid than another. Judges are, of course, the ultimate arbiters of the acceptable decision. Sometimes, this decision is quite subjective. 7.7.1 Logic It is generally believed that academic and professional lawyers and, indeed, law students, are well skilled in the art of reasoning. Furthermore, it is believed that they are people who argue ‘logically’. To most, the term ‘logical’ indicates a person who can separate the relevant from the irrelevant, and come to an objective view, based often on supposedly objective formula. Colloquially, people accuse others, who change their mind or who are emotional in their arguing, of allowing their emotions to get the better of them, of ‘not being logical’. The dictionary defines logic as the science of reasoning, thinking, proof or inference. More than that, logic is defined as a science in its own right—a subsection of philosophy dealing with scientific method in argument and the uses of inference. Hegel called logic the fundamental science of thought and its categories. It certainly claims to be an accurate form of reasoning: its root is found in the Greek word logos meaning reason. Figure 7.7: a definition of logic