Dear Peter,
}will or should the law say or allow an entity such as the jury to say
}that there is "causation" even though from a certain scientific
}perspective the possibility of a common cause or a hidden variable
}cannot be ruled out; or, alternatively stated*?)
Absolutely! Let's say hidden variable A would exonerate X, by making
X's action irrelevant (or sufficiently so). But then suppose that the
model with A is just not very plausible -- it shouldn't count much in the
verdict. I would hope that legal and scientific reasoning never contradict
proper causal reasoning in a model (assuming we remove any remaining bugs
from that theory), but there will still be room for debate about the
proper model.
}some arenas -- e.g., in commercial case, where, e.g., there is a clear
}intent to breach a contract, an act clearly intended to breach the contract,
}and the anticipated harm to the non-breaching party follows --
I'm not a lawyer. In philosophy we'd separate the two questions:
1) The subject X acted culpably, raising chance that
victim Y would be harmed.
2) Victim Y was harmed. Possibly because of X's actions,
possibly by coincidence.
In theory you could prosecute (1) independently of (2). Within each realm,
the causal reasoning should be clear given the model, and I would hope be
an important part of the verdict.
-C
--
Charles R. Twardy, Res.Fellow, Monash University, School of CSSE
ctwardy at alumni indiana edu +61(3) 9905 5823 (w) 5146 (fax)
"Incongruous places often inspire anomalous stories." -- S.J. Gould
