A Modest Proposal

The biggest reform I would like to see in the curriculum at Our Law School is the addition of a required first year course in Logic. I am so sick of hearing one argument after another-- or reading papers written by my collegues, which is even worse if you ask me-- that contain glaring logical fallacies. Not that I am naive enough to think that a single course would fix this problem, but it would surely help at least a little. Plus, for those who actually pay attention to these things and care about them, it would enable you to write stronger and more persuasive work. Given the amount of judgement by analogy we're called upon to do in the course of writing a memo or brief on any given topic, one would think that the advantage of a little training in syllogistic logic would be patently obvious.