This article discusses how a method of legal reasoning employed first by French and Spanish legislators and judges and, subsequently, by their Latin American successors hindered the economic development of their respective countries.1 It suggests that significant economic development would be possible if legislators helped enact honest, reasonable, and fair versions of successful market practices in a manner consistent with their nations’ or regions’ developmental goals.2 It further suggests that Latin American judges can contribute to the attainment of such goals by adopting a method of reasoning that differs from their present method. The proposed method requires that in disputes caused by the disabling effects of obsolete statutory, case, or customary law on promising new customs and practices, the judge acts as a quasi-legislator. In that capacity, he should carefully consider not only the pivotal facts of the dispute and the applicable law but also his nation’s socio-economic conditions and economic development goals. Then, by placing himself in the archetypal position of a reasonable merchant, always having in mind the interest of his contractual and third-party ‘others’, the judge’s decision should enable Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s ‘prophecies’ of what courts will decide in future cases with similar facts and legal issues.3 Thus, he will also be heeding the advice of the distinguished Mexican legal philosopher Eduardo García Máynez, who urged judges to fill the inevitable obsolete and unfair normative gaps with equitable judicial ‘individual’ norms.4 Finally, in updating practices and correcting injustices, the judges’ methods of reasoning should be guided by a broad definition of good faith adopted by 19th-century German Civil and Commercial Codes as well as by the 20th-century US Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), as will be discussed throughout this article. In essence, it requires that legislators and judges take into account the honesty, reasonableness, and fairness of the new practice before it becomes a binding norm.

中文翻译：

---

法律推理与拉丁美洲的经济发展

本文讨论了首先由法国和西班牙的立法者和法官采用的一种法律推理方法，随后由他们的拉丁美洲继任者采用，如何阻碍了各自国家的经济发展。以符合其国家或地区的发展目标的方式，以诚实、合理和公平的方式讲述成功的市场实践。 2 它进一步表明，拉丁美洲法官可以通过采用不同于他们现在的方法。提议的方法要求，在因过时的成文法、案例法或习惯法对有希望的新习俗和做法的失效影响而引起的争议中，法官充当准立法者。以这种身份，他不仅应该仔细考虑争端的关键事实和适用的法律，还应该仔细考虑他的国家的社会经济状况和经济发展目标。然后，通过将自己置于一个理性商人的原型位置，始终考虑到他的合同和第三方“其他人”的利益，法官的决定应该使 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 法官能够“预言”什么法院3 因此，他还将听取著名的墨西哥法律哲学家爱德华多·加西亚·梅内斯 (Eduardo García Máynez) 的建议，他敦促法官以公平的司法“个人”来填补不可避免的过时和不公平的规范空白。 norm.4 最后，在更新实践和纠正不公正现象时，法官的推理方法应以 19 世纪德国民商法典以及 20 世纪美国统一商法典 (UCC) 所采用的宽泛的诚信定义为指导，本文将对此进行讨论。实质上，它要求立法者和法官在新实践成为具有约束力的规范之前考虑其诚实性、合理性和公平性。