Yet if providing reasons for their decisions is part of what we expect courts to do, and if providing reasons is a key to the actual workability of a system of precedent, then the traditional distinction between holding and dicta may be more problematic than commonly thought. Because a reason is necessarily broader than the outcome that it is a reason giving a reason is saying something broader then necessary to decide the particular case. And that seems to be dicta. What is technically dictanot totally necessary for the result-is precisely what it is that makes it possible for us to generalize from a very specific ruling and thus to use it as a precedent in the future.

Unknown, Frederick Schauer - Thinkin…, loc. 98