1. 9.2 Legal Reasoning
The English ancestry of the American and Canadian legal systems means that many legal arguments are analogical in nature because the English system depends upon precedent.
Requirement of precedent: similar cases must be decided similarly

2. 9.2 Legal Reasoning
Judges used to render laws directly (producing common law)
Today, many of our laws are statutes, produced not by judges but by legislative bodies, codified in statute books, and periodically revised
However, the requirement of precedent still applies

3. 9.2 Legal Reasoning
Legal arguments largely depend on a similarity between the case at hand and an earlier case that sets a precedent for a legal decision Analogical reasoning: Earlier case X is similar to case Y In case X, it was ruled that R Therefore, it should be ruled that R in case Y as well

4. 9.2 Legal Analogies
Differences between legal and other forms of analogical reasoning:
In law, the clarity of simple analogies is rarely found. Modes of similarity between cases are often the result of highly creative thinking by lawyers and judges and the relevance of these similarities to the proposed conclusion is often debatable.
Primary analogues in law (earlier cases) do not all have equal weight. Federal courts are separate from state courts and both state and federal systems have several levels.

5. 9.2 Continued
Sometimes lawyers and judges are confronted with cases lacking a clear precedent, known as cases of first impression.
Attempting to resolve them by appealing to analogous instances involves even more creativity than when dealing with normal cases.

6. 9.3 Moral Reasoning
Moral reasoning also often draws on arguments from analogy.
In attempting to support a moral position, the arguer may appeal to an argument from analogy by looking at our judgments about similar cases.
Example: JJ Thomson’s violinist thought experiment

7. 9.3 Moral Reasoning
The same rules for evaluating general arguments from analogy apply to evaluating moral arguments – though it is often quite difficult to determine whether something is a relevant similarity or disanalogy between cases. Whether something counts for the sake of the argument typically depends on underlying ethical principles that apply or fail to apply across cases.

8. 9.3 Moral Reasoning
The book has an example of moral reasoning and analogies in the form of a dialogue:
“The Case of Fetal Abuse”