Peter Tillers, Esq. & Prof.

peter@tillers.net

There is a longstanding philosophical debate about the relationship between "facts" and "values." This philosophical chestnut takes a particularly interesting form in the context of evidence and inference. Some theorists insist on a sharp distinction between descriptive theories of inference and prescriptive or normative theories of inference. This distinction, however, may be difficult to sustain if one thinks that whenever one describes a form of inference one describes a form of reasoning or logic. Furthermore, close study of inferential argument suggests that the source of many of the principles or generalizations on which people rely when they draw inferences is as likely to be culture as it is to be personal or scientific experience. Students of probability, induction, and inference must in the future think more carefully than they have in the past about the relationship between "rational inference" and matters such as culture and "values." While I am no great fan of movements such as deconstruction, there may be more than is generally acknowledged to the Hegelian idea than that human societies and communities are grand experiments, tests, or wagers of the viability or validity of particular "world views," views of the world that may prove to be right (or wrong) but whose accuracy or adequacy cannot be demonstrated while they are being "socially tested." I hope to further examine this general question -- the relationship between "rational inference" and matters such as culture, cultural values, prejudice, personal values, and personal beliefs -- in the years to come. (I am now inclined to beleve that it is necessary to pay close attention to the "natural" workings of the human organism. See P. Tillers, "Are There Universal Principles or Forms of Evidential Inference?," in J. Jackson, M. Langer & P. Tillers, eds., Crime, Procedure, and Evidence in a Comparative and International Context (Hart Publishing, forthcoming 2008).)

A conference on this topic was held at Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, on January 28-29, 2007.

Drafts and abstracts of many of the conference papers and comments are available online at http://tillers.net/conference.html.

Final versions of many of the above papers as well as some other related papers are available in the following special quadruple issue of Law, Probability and Risk: