Rhetorical Processes and Legal Judgments

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Legal Judgments

The Impact of Visual Stereotypes on Judgments about Rape

2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-140
Author(s):  
Robert Busching ◽  
Johannes Lutz
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Clear Distinction ◽  
Rape Myth ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Correlation Technique ◽  
Specific Effects ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Legally irrelevant information like facial features is used to form judgments about rape cases. Using a reverse-correlation technique, it is possible to visualize criminal stereotypes and test whether these representations influence judgments. In the first step, images of the stereotypical faces of a rapist, a thief, and a lifesaver were generated. These images showed a clear distinction between the lifesaver and the two criminal representations, but the criminal representations were rather similar. In the next step, the images were presented together with rape scenarios, and participants (N = 153) indicated the defendant’s level of liability. Participants with high rape myth acceptance scores attributed a lower level of liability to a defendant who resembled a stereotypical lifesaver. However, no specific effects of the image of the stereotypical rapist compared to the stereotypical thief were found. We discuss the findings with respect to the influence of visual stereotypes on legal judgments and the nature of these mental representations.

Calibrating Legal Judgments

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Schauer ◽  
Barbara A. Spellman
Keyword(s):  
Legal Judgments

Applying Synthetic Control Method to Estimate the Impact of the Lava Jato Operation on the Worldwide Governance Indicators in Brazil

2021 ◽  
pp. 2631309X2110178
Author(s):  
Eduardo Carvalho Nepomuceno Alencar ◽  
Bryant Jackson-Green
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Governance Indicators ◽  
Regulatory Quality ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Control Of Corruption

In 2014, the most prominent anti-corruption investigation in Latin America called Lava Jato, exposed a Brazilian corruption scheme with reverberations in 61 countries, resulting in legal judgments for nearly 5 billion USD in reimbursements thus far. This article applies the synthetic control method on data from 135 countries (2002–2018) to test the hypothesis that Lava Jato impacts the Worldwide Governance Indicators in Brazil. The findings reveal that Lava Jato negatively affects control of corruption, the rule of law, and regulatory quality. There are signs of possible improvement in at least the corruption and the rule of law measures. This paper brings value to the criminological body of literature, notably lacking in the Global South.

On the Authoritativeness of Sunni Consensus

1986 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weal B. Hallaq
Keyword(s):  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
The Body ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Legal Process ◽  
Mental Faculty ◽  
Original Case ◽  
Consensus Functions ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
Substantive Law

Sunni Islam recognizes four sources from and through which the laws governing its conduct are derived. These are the Qur'an, the Sunna of the Prophet, the consensus (ljmā') of the community and its scholars, and qiyās, the juridicological method of inference. The first two sources provide the jurist with the material from which he is to extract through qiyas and ijtihād (the disciplined exercise of mental faculty) the law which he believes to the best of his knowledge to be that decreed by God. Except for a relatively limited number of cases where the Qu'an and the Sunna offer already-formulated legal judgments, the great majority of furū' cases, which constitute the body of positive and substantive law, are derived by qiyas. Thus, qiyas may be used to “discover” the judgment of a new case provided that this case has not already been solved in the two primary sources. The process of legal reasoning which qiyas involves is charged with innumerable difficulties not the least of which is finding the circle of common similarity, the 'illa, between the original case in the texts and the new case which requires a legal judgment. Since finding the 'illa entails a certain amount of guesswork (zann) on the part of the jurist and since it is highly probable that the 'illa is extracted from a text which is not entirely reliable or a text capable of more than one interpretation, Sunni jurists deemed the results of qiyas to be probable (zannī). It is only at this point that consensus may enter into play in the legal process. Should Muslims, represented by their jurists, reach an agreement on the validity of a zanni legal judgment, such judgment is automatically transferred from the domain of juristic speculation to that of certainty (qat', yaqīn). Consensus then renders this judgment irrevocable, not to be challenged or reinterpreted by later generations. Furthermore, this judgment, being so irrevocable, acquires a validity tantamount to that of the Qur'an and the highly reliable traditions embodied in the Sunna of the Prophet. Thus, such a case with its established judgment becomes a precedent according to which another new legal question may be solved. It is only in this sense that consensus functions as a source of law, a source which is infallible.

Causation in Legal and Moral Reasoning

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Lagnado ◽  
Tobias Gerstenberg
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
Causal Model ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Causal Models ◽  
Responsibility Attribution ◽  
Model Framework ◽  
The Social ◽  
Legal Concepts ◽  
Legal Judgments

Causation looms large in legal and moral reasoning. People construct causal models of the social and physical world to understand what has happened, how and why, and to allocate responsibility and blame. This chapter explores people’s common-sense notion of causation, and shows how it underpins moral and legal judgments. As a guiding framework it uses the causal model framework (Pearl, 2000) rooted in structural models and counterfactuals, and shows how it can resolve many of the problems that beset standard but-for analyses. It argues that legal concepts of causation are closely related to everyday causal reasoning, and both are tailored to the practical concerns of responsibility attribution. Causal models are also critical when people evaluate evidence, both in terms of the stories they tell to make sense of evidence, and the methods they use to assess its credibility and reliability.

scholarly journals AI Model for Predicting Legal Judgments to Improve Accuracy and Explainability of Online Privacy Invasion Cases

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (23) ◽  
pp. 11080
Author(s):  
Minjung Park ◽  
Sangmi Chai
Keyword(s):  
Text Analysis ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Online Privacy ◽  
Study Objective ◽  
Societal Factors ◽  
Network Text Analysis ◽  
Improve Accuracy ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
High Possibility

Since there are growing concerns regarding online privacy, firms may have the risk of being involved in various privacy infringement cases resulting in legal causations. If firms are aware of consequences from possible cases of invasion of online privacy, they can more actively prevent future online privacy infringements. Thus, this study attempts to predict the probability of judgment types caused by various invasions within US judicial cases that are related to online privacy invasions. Since legal judgment results are significantly influenced by societal factors and technological development, this study tries to identify a model that can accurately predict legal judgment with explainability. To archive the study objective, it compares the prediction performance by applying five types of classification algorithms (LDA, NNET, CART, SVM, and random forest) of machine learning. We also examined the relationship between privacy infringement factors and adjudications by applying network text analysis. The results indicate that firms could have a high possibility of both civil and criminal law responsibilities if they distributed malware or spyware, intentionally or non-intentionally, to collect unauthorized data. It addresses the needs of reflecting both quantitative and qualitative approach for establishing automatic legal systems for improving its accuracy based on the socio-technical perspective.

scholarly journals Evoluzione metodologica dell’invalidità civile in Italia: confronto ragionato tra i sistemi valutativi tabellari, di legge e non, che si sono succeduti negli anni

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Sammicheli ◽  
Marcella Scaglione
Keyword(s):  
Disability Evaluation ◽  
Heart Diseases ◽  
Organ Damage ◽  
Working Capacity ◽  
Systematic Classification ◽  
Value Range ◽  
The One ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
Functional Indices ◽  
Ministerial Decree

The authors describe the evolution from 1980 to the present of the tables that describe invalidating states, on which the medical-legal judgments of civil disability in Italy are based.The first part of the work briefly describes the main disabilities, grouped by both body system and percentage value range, that can be found in the tables attached to the main documents applied, or applicable, to the sector: those issued alongside the Ministerial Decree n. 282 of 1980, those that accompanied the Ministerial Decree of February 1982 (still in force today) and those proposed by the Italian Institute of Social Security (INPS) in 2012, which have not yet entered into force.The second part of the paper has two aims. On the one hand, it seeks to underline the change in the pre-eminent type of disability featured in the tables: from osteoarticular diseases, which were the most significant type in the 1980 tables, to neoplastic diseases, which are the most prevalent overall in the 2012 tables.On the other hand, the authors highlight that the tables themselves have evolved, moving towards a more precise definition (both clinical and instrumental) of the organ damage causing the reduction in general working capacity. In the 1980 tables, disability was often evaluated empirically rather than based on the use of functional indices or systematic classification. In the 2012 INPS proposed tables, evaluations of the reduction in working capacity are often based on specific functional parameters for the various organs (EF for the heart, FEV1 for the respiratory system, GFR for the urinary system) or on standardized disability evaluation scales (NYHA classes for heart diseases, EDSS or the Hoehn & Yahr classification for neurological disorders, MMSE or CDR for dementia, the Child-Pugh classification for cirrhogenic hepatopathies).

scholarly journals Autonomy, Rationality, and Contemporary Bioethics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Pugh
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Informed Consent ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Rational Beliefs ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Decision Making Capacity ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
New Framework

Personal autonomy is often lauded as a key value in contemporary Western bioethics, and the claim that there is an important relationship between autonomy and rationality is often treated as an uncontroversial claim in this sphere. Yet, there is also considerable disagreement about how we should cash out the relationship between rationality and autonomy. In particular, it is unclear whether a rationalist view of autonomy can be compatible with legal judgments that enshrine a patient’s right to refuse medical treatment, regardless of whether ‘… the reasons for making the choice are rational, irrational, unknown or even non-existent’. This book brings recent philosophical work on the nature of rationality to bear on the question of how we should understand autonomy in contemporary bioethics. In doing so, the author develops a new framework for thinking about the concept, one that is grounded in an understanding of the different roles that rational beliefs and rational desires have to play in personal autonomy. Furthermore, the account outlined here allows for a deeper understanding of different forms of controlling influence, and the relationship between our freedom to act, and our capacity to decide autonomously. The author contrasts his rationalist account with other prominent accounts of autonomy in bioethics, and outlines the revisionary implications it has for various practical questions in bioethics in which autonomy is a salient concern, including questions about the nature of informed consent and decision-making capacity.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document