General: REVISED ARIZONA JURY INSTRUCTIONS (CRIMINAL), Standard Criminal § 5b(1) (STATE BAR OF AR... more General: REVISED ARIZONA JURY INSTRUCTIONS (CRIMINAL), Standard Criminal § 5b(1) (STATE BAR OF ARIZ. CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTION COMM. 4th ed. 2016) ("The State has the burden of proving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This means the State must prove each element of each charge beyond a reasonable doubt.... If, based on your consideration of the evidence, you are firmly convinced that the defendant is guilty of the crime charged, you must find him guilty."). COLORADO General: COLORADO JURY INSTRUCTIONS CRIMINAL § E:03 (MODEL CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS COMM. OF THE COLO. SUPREME COURT 2016) ("The burden of proof is upon the prosecution to prove to the satisfaction of the jury beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of all of the elements necessary to constitute the crime charged.... If you find from the evidence that each and every element of a crime has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, you should find the defendant guilty of that crime."). CONNECTICUT General: CONNECTICUT JUDICIAL BRANCH CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS § 2.2-2 (CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTION COMM. 2017) ("The state has the burden of proving that the defendant is guilty of the crime with which she is charged."). Specific: Id. § 9.2-1 ("If you unanimously find that the state has proved beyond a reasonable doubt each of the elements of the crime of burglary in the first degree, then you shall find the defendant guilty.").
Decision theory requires agents to assign probabilities to states of the world and utilities to t... more Decision theory requires agents to assign probabilities to states of the world and utilities to the possible outcomes of different actions. When agents commit to having the probabilities and/or utilities in a decision problem defined by objective features of the world, they may find themselves unable to decide which actions maximize expected utility. Decision theory has long recognized that work-around strategies are available in special cases; this is where dominance reasoning, minimax, and maximin play a role. Here we describe a different work around, wherein a rational decision about one decision problem can be reached by "interpolating" information from another problem that the agent believes has already been rationally solved.
Allen and Pardo’s explanation of Relative Plausibility as a theory of evidence and proof in litig... more Allen and Pardo’s explanation of Relative Plausibility as a theory of evidence and proof in litigation is ambiguous and underspecified. Their account suggests at least three different interpretations of what they mean. They might be advocating “anti-halfism,” which tracks the “conventional account” but merely rejects >0.5 as the proper standard of proof. Or they might be advocating “probabilistic holism,” in which trial decision-makers apply probability to whole claims but not elements – in which case it remains to be explained how such an approach is internally coherent. Or they might be endorsing “total anti-probabilism,” in which “plausibility” obeys rules and axioms different from those of probability – rules and axioms that Allen and Pardo have yet to identify. To date, Allen and Pardo have side-stepped criticisms by shifting from one interpretation to another, strategically. Aside from presenting a theory too formless to determine how well it fits actual jury behavior, Allen and Pardo have not presented any robust empirical observations about how juries actually decide cases (despite their claims to do so). Before we can really assess whether Relative Plausibility is a new paradigm for understanding the structure of evidence and proof in litigation, Allen and Pardo must tell us much more about what it actually is.
The design argument for the existence of God took a probabilistic turn in the 17 th and 18 th cen... more The design argument for the existence of God took a probabilistic turn in the 17 th and 18 th centuries. Earlier versions, such as Thomas Aquinas' 5 th way, usually embraced the premise that goaldirected systems (things that "act for an end" or have a function) must have been created by an intelligent designer. This idea-which we might express by the slogan "no design without a designer"survived into the 17 th and 18 th centuries, 1 and it is with us still in the writings of many creationists. The new version of the argument, inspired by the emerging mathematical theory of probability, removed the premise of necessity. It begins with the thought that goal-directed systems might have arisen by intelligent design or by chance; the problem is to discern which hypothesis is more plausible. With the epistemic concept of plausibility characterized in terms of the mathematical concept of probability, the design argument was given a new direction.
All extant purely probabilistic measures of explanatory power satisfy the following technical con... more All extant purely probabilistic measures of explanatory power satisfy the following technical condition: if Pr(E | H1) > Pr(E | H2) and Pr(E | ∼H1) < Pr(E | ∼H2), then H1’s explanatory power with respect to E is greater than H2’s explanatory power with respect to E. We argue that any measure satisfying this condition faces three serious problems – the Problem of Temporal Shallowness, the Problem of Negative Causal Interactions, and the Problem of Non-Explanations. We further argue that many such measures face a fourth problem – the Problem of Explanatory Irrelevance.
As a subject of inquiry, laws of nature exist in the overlap between metaphysics and the philosop... more As a subject of inquiry, laws of nature exist in the overlap between metaphysics and the philosophy of science. Over the past three decades, this area of study has become increasingly central to the philosophy of science. It also has relevance to a variety of topics in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and epistemology. Readings on Laws of Nature is the first anthology to offer a contemporary history of the problem of laws. The book is organized around three key issues: the matter of distinguishing laws from mere correlations, questions concerning inductive reasoning and laws, and the consideration of whether there are any true laws in science. Designed for class use, the anthology covers a remarkably broad range of views and concerns, and consists exclusively of articles that have proved highly influential in the field. Readings on Laws of Nature will also serve as a valuable research and reference tool for philosophers who do not specialize in the subject, but who have occasion to examine concepts relating to the laws of nature in their own work.
General: REVISED ARIZONA JURY INSTRUCTIONS (CRIMINAL), Standard Criminal § 5b(1) (STATE BAR OF AR... more General: REVISED ARIZONA JURY INSTRUCTIONS (CRIMINAL), Standard Criminal § 5b(1) (STATE BAR OF ARIZ. CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTION COMM. 4th ed. 2016) ("The State has the burden of proving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This means the State must prove each element of each charge beyond a reasonable doubt.... If, based on your consideration of the evidence, you are firmly convinced that the defendant is guilty of the crime charged, you must find him guilty."). COLORADO General: COLORADO JURY INSTRUCTIONS CRIMINAL § E:03 (MODEL CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS COMM. OF THE COLO. SUPREME COURT 2016) ("The burden of proof is upon the prosecution to prove to the satisfaction of the jury beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of all of the elements necessary to constitute the crime charged.... If you find from the evidence that each and every element of a crime has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, you should find the defendant guilty of that crime."). CONNECTICUT General: CONNECTICUT JUDICIAL BRANCH CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS § 2.2-2 (CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTION COMM. 2017) ("The state has the burden of proving that the defendant is guilty of the crime with which she is charged."). Specific: Id. § 9.2-1 ("If you unanimously find that the state has proved beyond a reasonable doubt each of the elements of the crime of burglary in the first degree, then you shall find the defendant guilty.").
Decision theory requires agents to assign probabilities to states of the world and utilities to t... more Decision theory requires agents to assign probabilities to states of the world and utilities to the possible outcomes of different actions. When agents commit to having the probabilities and/or utilities in a decision problem defined by objective features of the world, they may find themselves unable to decide which actions maximize expected utility. Decision theory has long recognized that work-around strategies are available in special cases; this is where dominance reasoning, minimax, and maximin play a role. Here we describe a different work around, wherein a rational decision about one decision problem can be reached by "interpolating" information from another problem that the agent believes has already been rationally solved.
Allen and Pardo’s explanation of Relative Plausibility as a theory of evidence and proof in litig... more Allen and Pardo’s explanation of Relative Plausibility as a theory of evidence and proof in litigation is ambiguous and underspecified. Their account suggests at least three different interpretations of what they mean. They might be advocating “anti-halfism,” which tracks the “conventional account” but merely rejects >0.5 as the proper standard of proof. Or they might be advocating “probabilistic holism,” in which trial decision-makers apply probability to whole claims but not elements – in which case it remains to be explained how such an approach is internally coherent. Or they might be endorsing “total anti-probabilism,” in which “plausibility” obeys rules and axioms different from those of probability – rules and axioms that Allen and Pardo have yet to identify. To date, Allen and Pardo have side-stepped criticisms by shifting from one interpretation to another, strategically. Aside from presenting a theory too formless to determine how well it fits actual jury behavior, Allen and Pardo have not presented any robust empirical observations about how juries actually decide cases (despite their claims to do so). Before we can really assess whether Relative Plausibility is a new paradigm for understanding the structure of evidence and proof in litigation, Allen and Pardo must tell us much more about what it actually is.
The design argument for the existence of God took a probabilistic turn in the 17 th and 18 th cen... more The design argument for the existence of God took a probabilistic turn in the 17 th and 18 th centuries. Earlier versions, such as Thomas Aquinas' 5 th way, usually embraced the premise that goaldirected systems (things that "act for an end" or have a function) must have been created by an intelligent designer. This idea-which we might express by the slogan "no design without a designer"survived into the 17 th and 18 th centuries, 1 and it is with us still in the writings of many creationists. The new version of the argument, inspired by the emerging mathematical theory of probability, removed the premise of necessity. It begins with the thought that goal-directed systems might have arisen by intelligent design or by chance; the problem is to discern which hypothesis is more plausible. With the epistemic concept of plausibility characterized in terms of the mathematical concept of probability, the design argument was given a new direction.
All extant purely probabilistic measures of explanatory power satisfy the following technical con... more All extant purely probabilistic measures of explanatory power satisfy the following technical condition: if Pr(E | H1) > Pr(E | H2) and Pr(E | ∼H1) < Pr(E | ∼H2), then H1’s explanatory power with respect to E is greater than H2’s explanatory power with respect to E. We argue that any measure satisfying this condition faces three serious problems – the Problem of Temporal Shallowness, the Problem of Negative Causal Interactions, and the Problem of Non-Explanations. We further argue that many such measures face a fourth problem – the Problem of Explanatory Irrelevance.
As a subject of inquiry, laws of nature exist in the overlap between metaphysics and the philosop... more As a subject of inquiry, laws of nature exist in the overlap between metaphysics and the philosophy of science. Over the past three decades, this area of study has become increasingly central to the philosophy of science. It also has relevance to a variety of topics in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and epistemology. Readings on Laws of Nature is the first anthology to offer a contemporary history of the problem of laws. The book is organized around three key issues: the matter of distinguishing laws from mere correlations, questions concerning inductive reasoning and laws, and the consideration of whether there are any true laws in science. Designed for class use, the anthology covers a remarkably broad range of views and concerns, and consists exclusively of articles that have proved highly influential in the field. Readings on Laws of Nature will also serve as a valuable research and reference tool for philosophers who do not specialize in the subject, but who have occasion to examine concepts relating to the laws of nature in their own work.
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Papers by Elliott Sober