ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 depicts highly controversial and sensitive ethical and social questions concerning values of privacy, human dignity and the transcendental nature of life, which are to be answered in the judicial reasoning of the European Court of Human Rights in cases concerning the beginning and end of life. It claims that what stands out is the legal reasoning applied in such sensitive cases, where the conflict of arguments and the need to explain that which escapes rationalisation are particularly present and clearly visible. The ways of reasoning largely vary from a pure syllogistic method; they tend to convince the addressees of the ruling that it is just by appealing to basic and neutral criteria and recognising shared community standards, and also by referring to pragmatic arguments. The chapter outlines the rhetorical structure and argumentative functions of judicial reasoning, as well as the complexity of international courts’ audiences in the context of the courts’ legitimacy.
