Reasoning in law

Mr Adams had a fancy room - a stateroom indeed - on a steamboat operated by the New Jersey Steamboat Co.

He left $160 in the pocket of clothes hung in the locked room. Someone stole it during the night. If the boat had been a hotel, the owner would have been liable for his loss. Adams sued the Steamboat Company arguing that it had the same duty of care. The judge wrote “The relations that exist between a steamboat company and its passengers, who have procured staterooms for their comfort during the journey, differ in no essential respect from those that exist between the innkeeper and his guests. The passenger procures and pays for his room for the same reasons that a guest at an inn does. There are the same opportunities for fraud and plunder …. A steamer carrying passengers upon the water, and furnishing them with rooms and entertainment, is, for all practical purposes, a floating inn, and hence the duties which the proprietors owe to the passengers in their charge ought to be the same”. Adams v. New Jersey Steamboat Co 151 N.Y. 163 (1896)

What sort of reasoning is this?


1. Inference to the best explanation.

2. Reasoning by analogy.

3. Reasoning from Authority.

Which of these is a situation in which Tim Dare and Justine Kingsbury think that the burden of proof might legitimately be allocated unequally?


1. In truth-directed practices.

2. In non-truth directed practices.

3. In science.

4. In cases in which we already know the answer.

“Rebuttal is vital. An argument, however weak, stands until it is rebutted. .. . Adjudicators cannot regard an argument as knocked down until the opposition has rebutted it effectively. If a team makes an error of fact or logic, the adjudicator cannot penalize them for it unless the other team points out the error…. (Auckland Debating Association Guidelines 2002).

This Auckland Debating Association Guideline allocates the burden of proof:


1. Unequally

2. Equally

3. Inappropriately

To have a heavier Burden of Proof than an opponent is:


1. To be rationally required to provide better evidence or better arguments than they are required to provide.

2. Something encountered only in the law.

3. Important in truth directed practices.

An appeal to authority might be legitimate in law because:


1. The law is authoritative.

2. There are good reasons to respect the authority of law including the importance of certainty.

3. Judges are well educated and likely to be right.