Skip Navigation

Law, Probability and Risk 2003 2(4):275-294; doi:10.1093/lpr/2.4.275
© 2003 by Oxford University Press
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Redmayne, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Objective probability and the assessment of evidence

Mike Redmayne1

1 Law Department, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton St, London WC2A 2AE, UK

As accounts of evidential reasoning, theories of subjective probability face a serious limitation: they fail to show how features of the world should constrain probability assessments. This article surveys various theories of objective probability, noting how they overcome this problem, and highlighting the difficulties there might be in applying them to the process of fact-finding in trials. The survey highlights various common problems which theories of objective probability must confront. The purpose of the survey is, in part, to shed light on an argument about the use of Bayes' rule in fact-finding recently made by Alvin Goldman. But the survey is also intended to highlight important features of evidential reasoning that have received relatively little attention from evidence scholars: the role categorization plays in reasoning, and the link between probability and wider theories of epistemic justification.

Keywords: probability; theories of probability; objectivity; classification; epistemic justification.

Received 29 May 2003. Revised 1 October 2003. Accepted 1 October 2003.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.