Within legal scholarship there is a tendency to use (perhaps overuse) “paradigm shift” in ways far removed from the process famously described by Thomas Kuhn. Within the field of evidence, however, a phenomenon very similar to a paradigm shift, in the Kuhnian sense, is occurring. Although not on the scale of the transformation from Newtonian to Einsteinian physics or other tectonic shifts in science, the best understanding of juridical proof is shifting from probabilism to explanationism. For literally hundreds of years, proof at trial was assumed to be probabilistic. This assumption was given sustained scholarly attention and support beginning with the 1968 publication of John Kaplan’s path-breaking article that generated a rich literature explaining virtually all aspects of juridical proof as probabilistic, from the basic nature of relevancy through the processing of information to the final decision about the facts. Although probabilism quickly became the dominant paradigm, some analytical difficulties were detected quite early (“anomalies” or “irritants” in the words of Kuhn), beginning with L. Jonathan Cohen’s demonstration of certain proof paradoxes. These were extended by Ronald Allen, who also demonstrated the incompatibility of Bayesian reasoning with trials and proposed an analytical alternative. Again a complex literature ensued with the defenders of the dominant paradigm attempting to explain away the anomalies or to shield the probabilistic paradigm from their potentially corrosive effects (in what in fact on a very small scale is precisely what Kuhn explained and predicted with respect to paradigm shifts in science). Over the last two decades, these anomalies have become too irritating to ignore, and the strengths of the competing paradigm involving explanatory inferences (referred to as the relative plausibility theory) have become too persuasive to dismiss. Thus the paradigm shift that the field is now experiencing. We provide here a summary of the relative plausibility theory and its improvement on the probabilistic paradigm. As Kuhn noted, not everybody gets on board when paradigms shift; there are holdouts, dissenters, and objectors. Three major efforts to demonstrate the inadequacies of relative plausibility have recently been published. We analyze them here to demonstrate that their objections are either misplaced or unavailing, leaving relative plausibility as the best explanation of juridical proof. It is interesting to note that two of the three critiques that we discuss actually agree on the inadequacies of the probabilistic paradigm (they provide alternatives). The third concedes that explanationism may provide a better overall account of juridical proof but tries to resuscitate a probabilistic interpretation of burdens of proof in light of one particular analytical difficulty (i.e., the conjunction problem, which arises from the fact that proof burdens apply to the individual elements of crimes, civil claims, and defenses rather than a party’s case as a whole). In analyzing the alternative positions proposed by our critics, we demonstrate that their accounts each fail to provide a better explanation than relative plausibility.

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相对合理性及其批评者

在法律学术界，人们倾向于以与 Thomas Kuhn 所描述的过程相去甚远的方式使用（可能是过度使用）“范式转变”。然而，在证据领域内，正在发生一种与库恩意义上的范式转变非常相似的现象。尽管不是在从牛顿物理学到爱因斯坦物理学或其他科学构造转变的规模上，但对司法证明的最佳理解是从概率论转向解释论。数百年来，审判中的证据被认为是概率性的。从 1968 年约翰·卡普兰 (John Kaplan) 开创性文章的发表开始，这一假设得到了持续的学术关注和支持，该文章产生了丰富的文献，几乎将司法证明的所有方面解释为概率性，从相关性的基本性质到信息处理到对事实的最终决定。尽管概率论很快成为主导范式，但很早就发现了一些分析困难（用库恩的话来说是“异常”或“刺激物”），从 L.乔纳森科恩对某些证明悖论的演示开始。这些由 Ronald Allen 扩展，他还证明了贝叶斯推理与试验的不兼容，并提出了一种分析替代方案。再次出现了复杂的文献，主导范式的捍卫者试图解释异常或保护概率范式免受其潜在的腐蚀影响（实际上，在很小的范围内正是库恩关于范式的解释和预测）科学的转变）。在过去的二十年里，这些异常现象已经变得令人恼火而无法忽视，而涉及解释性推论（称为相对合理性理论）的竞争范式的优势也变得过于具有说服力而无法驳回。因此，该领域现在正在经历范式转变。我们在这里提供了相对合理性理论及其对概率范式的改进的总结。正如库恩所指出的，当范式转变时，并不是每个人都参与其中。有坚持者、异议者和反对者。最近发表了三项主要努力来证明相对合理性的不足。我们在此对其进行分析，以证明他们的反对意见要么是错位的，要么是无效的，而将相对合理性作为对司法证明的最佳解释。有趣的是，我们讨论的三个批评中有两个实际上同意概率范式的不足之处（它们提供了替代方案）。第三个承认解释主义可能对司法证明提供更好的整体解释，但试图根据一个特定的分析困难（即合取问题，由于证明责任适用于犯罪、民事索赔和抗辩的个别要素，而不是作为一个当事人的整个案件）。在分析我们的批评者提出的替代立场时，我们证明他们的陈述都未能提供比相对合理性更好的解释。