Legislación, racionalidad y argumentación en Aristóteles / Legislation, rationality and argumentation in Aristotle

Abstract

This paper purports a reconstruction of Aristotle’s ideas on laws (nomoi) from the point of view of contemporary theory of legislative argumentation. A claim is made for the strictly philosophical approach of Aristotle on the matter, in contrast to a technical or scientific one. The main thesis to be defended is the priority of the justificatory dimension in law-making rationality and its framing as a complex modality of practical reasoning of an ethical-political nature. After discussing the legislator’s reasoning as a kind of balancing in which the different values that Aristotle considers as elements of justice —a second-order value itself centered on equality— come into play, reference is made to the dialectical and rhetorical implications of legislative argumentation.

Keywords: Aristotle, balancing, dialectics, equality, justice, law-making, legislation, nomoi, practical reasoning, rhetoric, rule of law.