The Victorian era is often seen as solidifying modern law’s idealization of number, rule, and definition. Yet Wilkie Collins thwarts the trend toward “trial by mathematics” and “actuarial justice” by adopting an antinumerical example as the basis for a literary experiment. The bizarre third verdict (“not proven”) of Scots law, which falls between “guilty” and “not guilty” and acts as an acquittal that nonetheless imputes a lack of evidence for conviction, structures his detective novel The Law and the Lady (1875). Revealing Collins’s sources in trial reports and legal treatises, this chapter shows how uncertainty inflects judicial reasoning and models of reading. The verdict of “not proven” undercuts the truth claims of binary judgment at law, subverts normative categories, and allows for more flexible visions of social judgment. Collins makes visible a counter-trend to certainty and closure in legal institutions and Victorian novels about the law. The chapter briefly treats Anthony Trollope’s Orley Farm (1862) and Mary Braddon’s An Open Verdict (1878), which also promote types of inference and models of critical judgment that value the tentative, hesitant, and processual, evading the calculative pressures of nineteenth-century law and life.

The Australian legal system is not an island, and Australian law has felt the influence of law and legal ideas from other jurisdictions, particularly other common law countries. Australian law has also been shaped by public international law both directly and indirectly and this interaction has become increasingly important as the scope and content of international law have grown. The relationship between Australian law and international law is mediated by Australia’s constitutional framework in which the separation of powers between the executive, legislature and the courts holds central place. Unlike the constitutions in many other legal systems, the Australian Constitution does not address the relationship between international and domestic law, and most of the relevant legal principles are to be found in the common law. This chapter examines how each arm of government in Australia has engaged with international law, identifying areas where the relationship is well settled (as it is in relation to treaties) and areas where there remains some uncertainty (as in relation to customary international law).

Pufendorf’s method comprised three distinguishable strains: a humanistic deployment of diverse sources, especially from classical antiquity; an eclectic demand to choose and fashion such materials anew; and a scientific insistence on observational evidence, systemic coherence, and procedural rigor. Each of these resisted disciplinary capture, authoritarian control, and subservience to extraneous, extra-philosophical interests – appealing instead to a rational and thus potentially universal audience. In Pufendorf the third strain became dominant and involved the others as auxiliary procedures. Like other early modern instances of “mathematical” or scientific method, it aspired – in principle, and within its characteristic domain of free, human action – to probative certitude and intellectual authority while remaining exposed to challenges and demands for articulation, thereby claiming the participatory assent of other, unbiased reasoners. Despite eschewing metaphysical foundations in favor of merely empirical supports, it claimed the peculiar force or authority animating explanatory and normative legality alike. It was, in short, rational and empirical at the same time, attempting to control the pull of these counter-tendencies toward more abstract, vacuous, and irreconcilable extremes. This aim was achieved by combining broadly prudential analyses of both human and divine intent, nourished by a realistic or pragmatic assessment of historical (actual and recorded) experience.

This contribution discusses two theses on juridical evidence: the ostension thesis and the inference thesis. According to the former, the process of juridical proof typically requires some kind of ostensive act. In this sense, the evidence consists of some kind of element susceptible of being shown, or exhibited, or indicated to someone in a given context. According to the second thesis, the process of juridical proof necessarily requires inference. In this process, juridical evidence becomes the content of one or more inferences performed by the parties or by the fact-finders (judges or jurors). It can be the content of a premise which, together with other premises, leads to a conclusion about the disputed facts; or the content of a conclusion to which the premises lead. The two theses concern the process of juridical proof, but also the evidence involved in the process, since some characters of the process affect its content. Evidence is ostensively shown and inferentially processed.

The chapter concentrates on two late medieval archives. The first preserves “act-books” or logs of daily court activity and annual fiscal information from the archdeaconry of Xanten on the Lower Rhine. The second keeps registers of sentences and the dossiers of complete suits or “cause papers” assembled by the bishop’s tribunal of Basel in Switzerland. Their examination establishes what Christians from both regions expected canonical adjudication to deliver in disputes over the validity of marriages. The ordinary judges of Basel and Xanten were heavily involved in inquests that did not exceed preliminaries from a legal standpoint. Decisions emanating from their activities found with greatest frequency that a supposed spousal union failed to rise to the level of lawful proof. Many of the defeated plaintiffs at Xanten were ready to take advantage of the outcome by bringing another suit in the same venue. Women who lost their claim to a spouse often returned to sue the winner for alimony, bridal money, or to compensate for the loss of their virginity.

Predictive technologies have become an inseparable part of counterterrorism decision-making. In the past decades, the United Nations Security Council has advanced and legitimized this reliance on predictive technologies, including the substandard levels of certainty and proof they entail, justifying opaque predictive epistemology in counter-terrorism decision-making both within and outside the SC sanction regime. Based on an interdisciplinary scholarship on law, science, and technology, as well as empirical observations from concrete battlefield operations, this chapter identifies three problems stemming from the reliance on predictive technologies in counter-terrorism decision-making. First, the outputs of predictive technologies - often perceived as objective, complete, and neutral - mask the subjective and speculative elements involved in their production. Second, the combination of predictive technologies and opaque epistemology embraces uncertainty as the baseline for knowledge, resulting in a transition from juridical to administrative decision-making process. Third, erroneous decisions often remain unaccounted for, as technology systems are being blamed for mistaken, technology-assisted, human decisions. The chapter develops concrete recommendations to mitigate these problems, and advises the SC to consider the effects of its legitimation of opaque evidentiary standards in the context of the sanctions regime, on the justification of these problematic norms in the context of counter-terrorism battlefield operations.

This chapter addresses the legitimation of the judgment of taste, the task of its deduction. Kant claims that judgments of taste may be argued about but not disputed. Is there room for a mode of supporting one’s judgment that is distinct from proof (on the one side) and from persuasion (on the other)? This chapter shows that, on Kant’s view, there is, and that aesthetic arguing occupies it. Aesthetic arguing is undertaken with the aim, or in the hope, of opening the way for the other person’s animation: helping the object bring the other person to life, or helping bring her to life for it. The free play of the cognitive faculties expresses or constitutes a caring for the object. To care for or about something or someone is to commit to ongoing engagement with it and to the furthering of one’s care itself. Caring projects an open-ended commitment and looks to the future. It is in this sense that the free play of the cognitive faculties seeks its own indefinite perpetuation. The principle of judgment entails an imperative to care about the world for its own sake, and the judgment of taste models such care.

Chapter 7 addresses the manner in which the International Court of Justice interprets and applies compensation as a remedy of international law. The definition, function and categories of compensation are issues that this chapter addresses, along with its relationship to other remedies of international law, in particular to restitution in kind. Further, the requests that states submit before the Court demonstrate that two main types of requests regarding compensation are usually included in pleadings: requests for determined compensation and requests for undetermined compensation. The mechanisms used by the Court to address compensation for material and/or moral damages and for damages caused directly to states and/or damages caused to individuals are relevant for clarifying this remedy of international law. Through cases such as the Corfu Channel Case, the Diallo Case and the Chorzow Factory Case, the Court has shaped the manner in which compensation is assessed for disputes relating to damages caused to the environment or to addressing moral damages caused to individuals through equitable considerations.

What is faith? Is it just a matter of propositions, claims, such as “God is love”? Or is it more a matter of commitment, perhaps not fully articulated, of having a background awareness of God and his love? And what is the position of faith for the Christian? Is faith alone enough, or does one need to supplement it with reasoned argument and possibly appeal to outside evidence? The New Atheists argue that Christianity fails because it rests on faith, and, today, we see that reason and evidence, most notably science and its confirmed theories, negate faith claims. Faith therefore is seen as delusional, a function of the fact that people are scared of death and the apparent meaninglessness of their lives. Ruse and Davies raise and argue these questions, coming to very different conclusions.

This chapter not only explores the efflorescence of ‘new’ visions that occurred, especially, but not only, in the British Isles, during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, it also traces the reproduction of early medieval visions too, arguing that the slow evolution of ‘purgatory’ from early medieval origins facilitated their continued use. Change is nonetheless to be found in this period. There was renewed sensitivity to old anxieties about the authenticity of visions. There was a fresh flux of debate about conceptualisations of the afterlife that were so strongly material. And, most especially, new theological and pastoral priorities were imprinted on vision-texts, which were subtly reshaped by shifting thinking about penitence and prayer. The chapter examines some of the most ‘popular’ visions, measured in terms of manuscript circulation, but it also reconstructs something of the range of visionary experiences too, taking into account narratives that were little attended in their day.

In his 1925 paper ‘A Defence of Common Sense’, G. E. Moore set out his ‘Common Sense view of the World’ as a series of ‘truisms’ about himself and the world. Moore then claims (1) that our common-sense truisms are largely true, and (2) that we know that our common-sense truisms are largely true. In his writings Moore defends (1) against philosophers who argue that common sense is no guide to the nature of reality by distinguishing between the ordinary meaning of his common-sense truisms (which is unproblematic) and their analysis (which is often doubtful). He defends (2) against sceptics by arguing that the assessment of claims to knowledge has to respect the framework of deep common-sense beliefs which shape our evidence. This chapter argues that Moore’s defence of (1) is not persuasive but that the defence of (2) includes important contributions to epistemology.

Chapter 7’s four rewritten cases deal with proof of systemic disparate treatment and impact discrimination. The rewritten Sears opinion rejects expert testimony that blamed women’s lack of interest in commission-based sales for the dearth of women employed in those jobs, characterizes this testimony as sex stereotyping, and holds that courts may not rebut strong statistical showing by plaintiffs in pattern or practice cases with sex stereotypes. Rewritten AFSCME exposes implicit bias in the market forces causing a pay gap between men and women, and narrates the real-life stories of the women whose pay was substantially lower in jobs of equal value to those of male colleagues. Rewritten Ricci holds that white plaintiffs who challenge an employer’s failure to use a test with a disparate impact on black and Latino employees must show that the employer lacked an actual and reasonable belief that it would be subject to liability for disparate impact if it used the test. Rewritten Wal-Mart certifies a large class of female employees, and holds that a showing of intent is not necessary when the statistics demonstrate discriminatory outcomes and the employer fails to rectify the problem.

The evidence collected to identify the computers and individuals involved in a cyber operation may also be used to determine whether they were acting on behalf of a State. This leads to the question of how such evidence may be used and considered admissible in a judicial proceeding, or more generally in an international dispute, related to a cyber operation. The development of State activities in cyberspace, notably offensive cyber operations, has led to international disputes between States. To date, a State has neither disputed a cyber operation before an international court or tribunal nor raised the issue before the UN Security Council. Generally, victim States have chosen to respond through extra-juridical measures, such as cyber countermeasures or measures of retorsion. However, there is the possibility that a State, in future, may bring a charge of harmful cyber operations before an international court or tribunal or before the UN Security Council.

Chaucer lived in a society that was aware of childhood and adolescence as distinctive stages of human life and which inherited practices whereby young people were brought up and trained for adulthood. Informally, at home, children were introduced to social norms, religion and work. Those from wealthier families underwent more formal education, mastering literacy at home, in schools or in great households, where they learnt reading, rules of courtesy, French and, in the case of some boys, Latin. Chaucer’s works refer in passing to most of these processes, with particular attention to adolescents, including university scholars. During the fifteenth century his works in general came to be seen as having educational value. The Astrolabe, first written for his son Lewis, seems to have been used for teaching reading to other young children while his major writings were recommended as suitable literature for older ones.

This chapter examines the place of law in the England of Chaucer’s day in both the formal legal system and in popular consciousness. It considers the relation of English common law both to the overarching law of God and to other institutional legal structures, not least the canon law of the church, as well as to more informal procedures. Intrinsic contradictions in the nature of legal norms, including the tension between the needs for general certainty and individual justice, provide much scope for writers of stories. Difficulties of proof and the role of the oath are outlined and an analysis is offered of the extent to which a knowledge of the law and legal system of Chaucer’s time can add to the appreciation and understanding of his work.