3 ms·
A light-hearted post about a completely evil method of "correctly" finding fact. A whisker away from apologetics for torture. The final paragraph is particular
by tonyg 9y ago
A light-hearted post about a completely evil method of "correctly" finding fact. A whisker away from apologetics for torture.
The final paragraph is particularly bonkers:
> "In practice, it might not have mattered whether ordeals were truly God’s judgments or instead the judgments of clever legal systems that leveraged criminal defendants’ incentives to correctly find fact. For, in either case, the result was the same: improved criminal justice, thanks to God."
It's a facile analysis indeed that posits that this setup is either "clever", might "correctly find fact", or might lead to "improved criminal justice".
- dm319 9y agoYes, it's a strange article in that on the face of it they take a philosophical, almost game-theory approach to how it works (with some pretty big assumptions of course), but at times it ventures into the medieval belief system itself. > The only ones who know for sure whether a defendant is guilty or innocent are the defendant himself and God above Maybe it is carefully written so that the writer can get across an interesting anecdote, while not upsetting the 60% of people that pray daily in Virginia.
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoNo, it's written like that because belief in God is paramount to how this system works; especially back then, defendants might've not be afraid of the criminal justice system per se, but God, hoo boy don't want to piss that guy off. I mean the basic premise of trial by ordeal is "Hey, we dunno if you did it or not, and we can't trust your word for it, let's ask God, and let Him burn the shit out of your hand if you're lying". Pain + religious fears.