Abstract

A question, long discussed by legal scholars, has recently provoked a considerable amount of philosophical attention: ‘Is it ever appropriate to base a legal verdict on statistical evidence alone?’ Many philosophers who have considered this question reject legal reliance on bare statistics, even when the odds of error are extremely low. This paper develops a puzzle for the dominant theories concerning why we should eschew bare statistics. Namely, there seem to be compelling scenarios in which there are multiple sources of incriminating statistical evidence. As we conjoin together different types of statistical evidence, it becomes increasingly incredible to suppose that a positive verdict would be impermissible. I suggest that none of the dominant views in the literature can easily accommodate such cases, and close by offering a diagnosis of my own.

Highlights

  • 1 Introduction A question, long discussed by legal scholars, has recently provoked a considerable amount of philosophical attention: ‘Is it ever appropriate to base a legal verdict on statistical evidence alone?’ The dominant view is that merely statistical evidence & Lewis D

  • The aim of this paper is to develop a puzzle for the dominant view that we should reject bare statistics in the courtroom

  • ‘Phase change’ approaches argue that bare statistical evidence becomes acceptable only when the chance of error crosses some threshold of extreme improbability

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Summary

Introduction

A question, long discussed by legal scholars, has recently provoked a considerable amount of philosophical attention: ‘Is it ever appropriate to base a legal verdict on statistical evidence alone?’ The dominant view is that merely statistical evidence. The question of how to treat bare statistics impinges upon debates about the nature of legal proof itself, whether it is acceptable to convict someone of a crime on the basis of DNA evidence, how we should treat epidemiological evidence, and the impermissibility of demographic profiling.. The question of how to treat bare statistics impinges upon debates about the nature of legal proof itself, whether it is acceptable to convict someone of a crime on the basis of DNA evidence, how we should treat epidemiological evidence, and the impermissibility of demographic profiling.6 These cases are not as artificial as one might initially suppose: the Blue Bus case has found close analogues in real case-law.. I close by outlining my own view on what explains the intuitive difference between these cases, drawing on the empirically supported ‘story model’ of legal fact-finding, and offer some reflections on where this leaves the state of the wider debate

Civil law
Criminal law
Four diagnoses of the proof paradox
Epistemic approaches
Approaches concerning morality and justice
Likelihood theory
Phase change theory
Findings
Error and storytelling
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