tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post115649223299489957..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Group InconsistencyRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1156996661065584892006-08-30T23:57:00.000-04:002006-08-30T23:57:00.000-04:00Yeah, I was thinking of a type-2 case. But note th...Yeah, I was thinking of a type-2 case. But note that only 1/3 of the judges in my scenario think that the evidence is inadmissable. The majority conclude that there are no grounds for excluding it. <I>Another</I> majority (with some but not total overlap, of course) conclude that the evidence, if admitted, entails guilt. And yet another majority nonetheless vote "not guilty" overall. So, if you ask for the majority verdicts, here's what we have: the evidence, if admitted, establishes guilt; the evidence is admissible; and the accused is not guilty.<BR/><BR/>(The paradox arises because the "not guilty" votes are based on the sum of two very different reasons, each of which is individually in a minority, but which form a majority when summed in this way.)<BR/><BR/>But that's just an example. To see the core point, consider it in the abstract: If 1/3 believe A, and a different 1/3 believe B, then we have a 2/3 majority in support of the proposition "A or B". But the majority think A is false, and another majority think B is false. So the majority verdicts are inconsistent: the group concludes that each of A and B, individually, is false, but also one of them (when considered together, i.e. "A or B") is true!Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1156995755535567492006-08-30T23:42:00.000-04:002006-08-30T23:42:00.000-04:00Not sure if this undermines the wider point, but e...Not sure if this undermines the wider point, but evidence will usually be inadmissible for one of two reasons:<BR/><BR/>1) The judges don't trust the jury to attach proper weight to the evidence.<BR/><BR/>2) There is some misconduct (e.g. illegal search) that is being punished by exclusion of otherwise relevant evidence.<BR/><BR/>In case 1, provided you assume the judges themselves attach proper weight to the evidence, a guilty verdict is correct.<BR/><BR/>In case 2, assuming the exclusion was correct in the first place, there is no problem with the not guilty result. Some otherwise guilty people must go free for the exclusion policy to have any deterrent effect.Nigel Kearneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04810873665345046994noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1156542885432947672006-08-25T17:54:00.000-04:002006-08-25T17:54:00.000-04:00Could deliberative democracy possibly solve the is...Could deliberative democracy possibly solve the issue?<BR/><BR/>I’m not sure your implied comparison is fair, the problem is that deliberative democracy cannot possibly consider anywhere near all of all issues at the same time. <BR/><BR/>So fundamentally it will be exposed to the same problem where the issues are resolved separately and conclusions arise that are separate and contradictory.<BR/>Representative systems would achieve consistency of policy, hopefully consistent in a way that the country wants. Any sort of direct democracy would probably result in inconsistency.Geniushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11624496692217466430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1156523981124205092006-08-25T12:39:00.000-04:002006-08-25T12:39:00.000-04:00The majority conclusions are hence as follows: The...<I>The majority conclusions are hence as follows: The evidence is admissible, the evidence establishes guilt, but the accused should (thereby?) not be convicted.</I><BR/><BR/>Surely not thereby, because that would change the result from three distinct conclusions each of which received a majority vote to one conclusion for which no one voted.<BR/><BR/>I don't know enough to say anything in detail about relevant logics, but I do know that in relevant logics it is fairly common to restrict the conjunction introduction rule. Each possible conjunct is really indexed according to its grounds or bases; and the relevance conjunction introduction rule is that conjunction introduction is that A and B have to have the same index for conjunction to be introduced. It's possible that something at least vaguely analogous is going on here; the propositions have different grounds, and so don't mix.<BR/><BR/>And that would make sense, I think. Consider how one would want such a result to function in one's judicial system. A and B may have been decided upon for this particular case, but given the way the result was obtained, so that A is a precedent and B is a precedent; but because of the way the result was obtained, it would be odd to accept (A&B) as a precedent rather than as a fluke. Or in the conviction case: the conclusion 'the evidence is admissible' has the force of precedent; the conclusion 'the vidence establishes guilt' has the force of precedent'; and the conclusion 'the evidence does not suffice to convict' has the force of precedent; but it would be absurd to take the conjunction of the three as having the force of precedent, because the grounds for the third are inconsistent with the grounds for the first. So each conclusion is relevant to further decisions, but their conjunction is not.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.com