What about the second argument in support of The Comparative Claim, namely that it would be appropriate to convict Bill in Prisoner* when it would be inappropriate to convict the defendant in Prisoners? Certainly, opponents of Locke`s view may argue, does this suggest that P* is more justified than P? However, as we have already seen, the Lockeans have a plausible answer to this argument. The litigation consulting firm seeks the truth by justifiably believing the facts of the case. To the extent that truth is the measure of the correctness of a positive judgment or statement, the ultimate goal, one might say, is knowledge. Subject to significant improvements and limitations, the investigator needs to determine p only if it is reasonable to assume that p. The concept of faith that works in this context is the concept of categorical faith. This differs from the concept of partial faith. The factual judge relies on her categorical factual beliefs about the case within a framework that includes comparing and eliminating assumptions. An overview of this framework is offered as an alternative to probabilistic fact-finding analysis. Cases are not decided on the basis of probability assessments; This denial of its role as a practitioner is compatible with the recognition of its other uses in the legal determination of the facts. Why can we refuse punishment? Opponents of the Lockean view may reject Punish on epistemic grounds. For example, Littlejohn (forthcoming: 2) suggests that “the best argument against Punish is built on an argument against Believe.” In fact, he considers the following to be the strongest argument against punishment (p. 16) – let`s call it the epistemic argument against punishment.

In addition to giving the Lockeans an answer to the argument of persuasion, the preceding considerations also point to a more general conclusion about the connection between epistemology and law: the connection between the juridical and the epistemic seems much less intimate than proponents of the persuasion argument seem to think. Here`s why. This feature of law is widely accepted by legal theorists; see, for example, Tribe (1971: 1376) and Saks and Kidd (1980-1981: 125). Unlike option 1, this policy accepts (D2) but rejects (D1). Proponents of this strategy may admit that in Prisoners we are not in a sufficiently epistemic position to claim that the accused is guilty, or pretend to be, but deny that it tells us something interesting about the nature of epistemic justification. I thank one reviewer for raising the following question: Imagine a society in which everyone agrees that purely statistical evidence is sufficient for legal beliefs; In such a society, it is believed, it would not be unfair to convict the accused. I think there are two ways to address this objection. First, we could accept that, in such a society, the practice of sentencing based on statistical evidence would no longer be unfair. In this case, we can admit that concerns about justice and fairness can collapse, throw fairness out of the picture and make the argument only in relation to justice.

A second option would be to take a more objective stance and assert that the practice of judging people on the basis of purely statistical evidence remains unfair (and unfair), even if people agree to adopt this practice. According to this view, a mere agreement would not be enough to resolve moral issues of fairness, as people could agree on unfair practices. While I personally find the second option more compelling, I will remain neutral on this issue here. At a sufficient level of abstraction, Smith seems to suggest that in cases where the only evidence against a defendant is purely statistical (this would include prisoners, of course), our epistemic status is not good enough to claim that the defendant is guilty or claim that the defendant is guilty. And this, according to Smith, should give us good reason to believe that the Lockean view, or any other point of view that we can legitimately believe the accused in Prisoners is guilty of, or that a Blue Bus was responsible for the accident, is somehow on the wrong track. We used to argue that epistemology and law have different purposes. In particular, we have argued that law is not only about making real judgments, but also about making judgments that uphold our ideals of justice and fairness.