Nico Bilski develops a systematic metamethodology of legal decision-making. Starting from German law, he examines the nature, aims, and limits of legal methods and their significance for rational legal reasoning. Methods are understood as the framework of legal decision rationality, enabling judges and administrative officials to present their decisions as non-arbitrary. The necessity of methodological justification follows from the constitutional constraints on the exercise of public authority. The study analyses the epistemological, linguistic, and argumentative limits of legal decision-making. Contrary to widespread methodological scepticism, the author demonstrates that consistent methodological reliance on established reasoning practices, as well as the invocation of legal authority, constitute central methods of rational decision-making. Legal methods thus secure the determinacy of law and the legitimacy of legal decisions.
