ABSTRACT
Legislative decisions are normally taken within a wider context of fixed anticipation. An aspect of the legislative process both serves to distinguish it from the judicial process and to account the type of creativity that is especially characteristic of reasoning as it operates in a legislature. In this chapter, the author agrees with Paul Diesing's formulation of that concept as involving three aspects, related and each ultimately including the others: reason as creativity; reason as adherence to the principles of generality, regularity, and consistency; and reason as calculation. He considers the first of these, which Diesing defines as "the making of order," as including the weighing and ordering of values. One thing that distinguishes a "rational" being from other beings is the capacity to reflect, to weigh the relative values of, say, writing an article or playing tennis, and then to make a judgment and act accordingly.
