In Defence of Reasonable Doubt.
In criminal trials the state must establish, to a particular standard of proof, the defendant's guilt. The most widely used and important standard of proof for criminal conviction is the 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard. But what legitimates this standard, rather than an alternative? One view ho...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Applied Philosophy Vol. 34; no. 2; pp. 221 - 242 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Feb2017
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=121219915&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 121219915 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 02643758 BQ0 jtl: Journal of Applied Philosophy issn: 02643758 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Feb2017 vid: 34 iid: 2 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 121219915 10.1111/japp.12173 ppf: 221 ppct: 21 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 520KB tig: atl: In Defence of Reasonable Doubt. aug: au: Gardiner, Georgi affil: Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University, 106 Somerset Street, 5th Floor, New Brunswick NJ, 08901, USA su: Criminal trials Reasonable doubt Criminal evidence Criminal justice system Laudan, Larry sug: subj: Criminal trials Reasonable doubt Criminal evidence Criminal justice system Laudan, Larry ab: In criminal trials the state must establish, to a particular standard of proof, the defendant's guilt. The most widely used and important standard of proof for criminal conviction is the 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard. But what legitimates this standard, rather than an alternative? One view holds the standard of proof should be determined or justified - at least in large part - by its consequences. In this spirit, Laudan uses crime statistics to estimate risks the average citizen runs of being violently victimised and falsely convicted. He argues that since the former risk is higher, and the aggregate harms are worse, the standard of proof should be substantially lowered. He presents a formula for calculating the preferred standard. In this article I outline various ways Laudan's uses of crime statistics are flawed, and explain how he substantially overestimates risks of victimhood and underestimates costs of false convictions. I also explain why his formula is mistaken, and illuminate consequences Laudan neglects. I conclude that, even if consequences determine the appropriate standard of proof, Laudan's arguments fail to show the standard is too high. I conclude by suggesting that the inadequacies of Laudan's reasoning might be good news for consequence-based justifications of the standard of proof. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Journal of Applied Philosophy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Journal of Applied Philosophy holder: Wiley-Blackwell dt: @attributes: year: 2017 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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