Evidence, Respect and Truth

Liat Levanon is Senior Lecturer in Law at King’s College London, UK

• Introduction PART ITHE EPISTEMOLOGY OF LEGAL FACT FINDING1. The Rationality of Belief and Error Eliminability I. Epistemology and Proof Paradoxes: A Very Brief Introduction II. Legal Practice: Logically Ineliminable Errors III. Rational Legal Belief IV. Error Eliminability and Truth Tracking V. Error Eliminability and Eliminative Induction2. The Challenge from Error and Error Eliminability I. Sceptical Challenges II. Error Eliminability and the Argument about Error III. Error Eliminability and Other Sceptical Arguments 3. Between the Epistemic and the Practical: Pushing against a Persisting DifficultyI. Does Knowledge Have Practical Value?II. The Practical Value of Epistemic Reasons: Stability of Belief and Successful Action III. Pragmatism: The Epistemic Value of Practical Reasons IV. A Shared Method of Reasoning for the Epistemic and the Practical V. An Overarching Value: Introducing Respect PART IITHE PRACTICALITY OF LEGAL FACT FINDING4. Respecting, Asserting and Error Eliminability I. Legal Assertions II. Informing of Wrongdoing III. Reasons to Inform as Reasons to Assert: Respect for Persons IV. Respect and the Norm of (Legal) Assertion V. Conclusions 5. Respecting, Doing Justice and Error Eliminability I. Justice as Fairness and Justified Belief: The Convergence of Justifications II. The Context of a Legal TrialIII. Accounting for the Convergence and Taking it Forward: Respect, Evidential Conditions and ‘Disaster Prevention’ IV. A More Rigid Account: Epistemic Value as a Source of Moral Value V. Conclusions 6. Resolution I. Conflict Resolution Outside and Inside Legal Discourse II. Error Eliminability and Legal Resolution III. Some Procedural Implications 7. From Respect to Cost Analysis in Criminal Judgments I. Evidence of Past Misconduct II. Statistical Evidence that Indicates Propensity III. Statistical Evidence that Does Not Indicate Propensity IV. A Mutual Tragedy: The Error of the Legal System V. Practical Implications: Aesthetics, Ethics and the Value of Choice VI. Error Eliminability and Cost Analysis PART IIIRESPONSIBILITY8. Epistemic and Moral Responsibility I. Legal Assertions and Epistemic Responsibility II. Legal Assertions and Practical Responsibility III. Conclusions PART IVBEYOND LEGAL FACT FINDING9. Applications I. Artificial Intelligence II. Algorithmic Sentencing: Predicting how a Human Would Make Retributive Judgements III. Algorithmic Prediction of Students’ Grades IV. Allocation of Resources in the Private and Public Domains V. Automated Cars and Other Dangerous Machines VI. Profiling and Individual Risk Prediction Based on Group Affiliation VII. Personal Attitudes VIII. Beliefs about Groups and the Problem of Prejudice