1996 JURIX 1 AN INTEGRATED VIEW ON RULES AND PRINCIPLES

It is generally acknowledged that there are intuitive differences between reasoning with rules and with principles. For instance, a rule seems to lead directly to its conclusion if its condition is satisfied, while a principle seems to lead merely to a reason for its conclusion. However, the implications of these intuitive differences for the logical status of rules and principles remain controversial. A radical opinion has been put forward by Dworkin (1978). The intuitive differences led him to argue for a strict logical distinction between rules and principles. Ever since, there has been a controversy whether the intuitive differences between rules and principles require a strict logical distinction between the two. For instance, Soeteman (1991) disagrees with Dworkin’s opinion, and argues that rules and principles cannot be strictly distinguished, and do not have a different logical structure. In this paper, we claim that the differences between rules and principles are merely a matter of degree. We give an integrated view on rules and principles in which rules and principles have the same logical structure, but different behavior in reasoning. In this view