On Wed Oct 23, 4-6pm UK time (in the Law Library), we’ll welcome Liat Levanon (KCL). She is Reader in Evidence Law and Philosophy and works on a variety of issues in criminal law theory, including issues related to justice and issue related to epistemology and evidence (see e.g. her 2020 book Evidence, Respect and Truth: Knowledge and Justice in Legal Trials (Hart Publishing)). She will present a paper aiming to illuminate the general role of epistemic attitudes in the practical domain, by grappling with certain arguments from the recent literature on pragmatic encroachment and doxastic wronging.

Abstract below, and paper can be accessed HERE (soon).

Click here to join online (hybrid format).

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Liat Levanon – “Pragmatic Encroachment and Doxastic Wronging: (Mostly) Critical Reflections”

Pragmatic encroachment, and doxastic wronging as one of its instances, have dominated the philosophical analysis of legal evidence in recent years. The basic thesis is that practical considerations impact knowledge generation: they might justify withholding otherwise justified and knowledge-generating belief. Among other things, this thesis has been used to explain the existence of different legal standards of proof, as well as the legal reluctance to make some legal judgments on ‘naked statistical evidence’ alone. The paper examines the strongest available defence of pragmatic encroachment and doxastic wronging, which has been developed in a series of articles by Mark Schroeder together with Rima Basu and others. While the examination is mostly critical in nature, it opens the door for a theoretical move that highlights the role that epistemic attitudes do play in the practical domain.