Abstract. The paper provides a qualified defence of Bruce Waller's deductivist schema for a priori analogical arguments in ethics and law. One crucial qualification is that the schema represents analogical arguments as complexes composed of one deductive inference (hence "deductivism") but also of one non-deductive subargument. Another important qualification is that the schema is informed by normative assumptions regarding the conditions that an analogical argument must satisfy in order for it to count as an optimal instance of its kind. Waller's schema (in qualified form) is defended from criticisms formulated by Trudy Govier, Marcello Guarini and Lilian Bermejo-Luque. Rėsumé

Anglo‐American authors have paid little attention to a subtle distinction that has important jurisprudential implications. It is the distinction between sources of law (e.g., statutes, precedents, customs) and the legal norms which can be derived from sources by means of interpretation. The distinction might also be rendered as a threefold one, separating sources of law from legal norms and both of these from that which mediates their relation, namely, methods of legal interpretation. This paper intends to state the “source‐norm” distinction clearly and to give examples of jurisprudential insights that are missed, and mistakes that may be made if the distinction is not given its due.

Ordinary arguments from authority have the following structure: A says p; A is authoritative on such things; so p. Legal actors use such arguments whenever they ground their decisions on the sheer “say‐so” of legislators, judges, scholars, expert witnesses, and so on. This paper focuses on arguments appealing to the authority of scholars, “doctrinal” or “dogmatic” legal scholars in particular. Appeal to doctrinal authority is a puzzling feature of legal argumentation. In what sense are doctrinal scholars “authorities”? Is p, as advanced by a scholar, descriptive or prescriptive? Is scholarly authority grounded on expertise or something different? The paper addresses these questions.

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Argumentation theorists often disagree about which scheme best represents a given type of argument (e.g. argument by analogy, argument from authority, inference to the best explanation). Unfortunately, these theorists sometimes become involved in fruitless pseudodisagreement because they fail to perceive that their supposedly competing schemes are means for achieving different (but compatible) practical or theoretical goals. This paper explains some of the different purposes that an argument scheme may serve, and indicates how the relevant type of pseudodisagreement may be avoided.Résumé: Les théoriciens de l'argumentation sont souvent en désaccord sur le schéma qui représente le mieux un type donné d'argument (par exemple un argument par analogie, un argument fondé sur un appel à l'autorité, une inférence à la meilleure explication). Malheureusement, ces théoriciens s'impliquent parfois dans un pseudo-désaccord infructueux parce qu'ils ne perçoi-vent pas que leurs systèmes en soidisant concurrence sont des moyens d'atteindre des objectifs pratiques ou théoriques différents (mais compatibles).Cet article explique quelques-uns des différents objectifs d'un schéma d'argument et indique comment on peut éviter le type pertinent de pseudo-désaccord.