Study On Judicial Proof Thinking

This dissertation analyzes the inter-relationship between intuition and logic during judicial proof thinking process.Relying on theoretical analysis, experimental data and models the dissertation describes a panoptic of judicial proof thinking style inside the judge’s mind and its purpose is to set forth a blueprint for scientification of judicial proof.This dissertation can be divided into four chapters which main contents are as following:ChapterⅠinvolve an introduction of judicial proof thinking,and it deals with the basic concepts related to judicial proof thinking and it maps out a rough line of judicial proof thinking process.The judicial thinking in this dissertation refers to an artificial process in which the subjects who participate in the judicial proof activities process the evidence information and draw the conclusions of facts under law procedural requirements and physical thinking rules.Firstly the definition of judicial proof process emphasizes its dynamic process nature,which means that during this process all the evidence information and its related questions will be input into the subjects’ minds which will eliminate the false ones and keep the true ones.Secondly all above activities are processed by the human brain in a spontaneous and whole way.Thirdly the process will be constrained by several factors including the brain physical conditions,the conflicts and gap between the evidence information,the social circumstances,procedural requirements set by adjective law and law values,etc...Fourthly though there are many constrains in this process,we have to find some conclusion about the facts as an achievement of this process in which the final conclusion is composed of several sub-conclusions and can be used as a recurrence of the past events.This chapter also discusses the characteristics of judicial thinking,such as subjective initiation,uniqueness,abstractness, diversities,hierarchy and creativeness.This chapter then details the influential factors in judicial thinking process,i.e.individual thinking ability,sufficiency of evidential information,social contexts,group behaviors,emotional elements and legal procedures.It divides the judicial proof thinking into logic dimension and intuition dimension under the standard of wholeness and embodiment.And next it elaborates their concepts,characteristics and interrelationship between the above factors. Logic thinking style means that the fact finder starts from the logical concepts of each evidence,and then form a rough judgment towards individual evidence,and finally draws a rational sub-conclusion according to some logic rules and common senses.Conceptuality,logic and language symbolic nature are the main characteristics of this thinking style.Intuition thinking style refers that the fact finder draw a conclusion about objects essence and rules in a prompt and direct way by intuition and personal experiences without any logic rules constrains.It is based on the experiences and characterizes as briefness,multi-dimensions and conjectures.These two thinking styles have connections and differences at the same time.According to the latest theory and experimental data,the dissertation summarize three rules of judicial thinking style-reflection law of identity,rule of information amount and status of thinking,and elimination rule of redundant information. ChapterⅡis mainly about the intuition as judicial proof thinking style. It talks about the philosophical foundation of intuition in judicial proof thinking style-intuitionism,fiction,realism,skepticism.It argues that the deciding judicial cases inescapably require the exercise of intuition.Based on experimental study and concrete cases,we will discuss the three most important cognitive illusions affecting the whole process-hunches, emotions,and anchoring effects.We find that the exercise of intuition is unavoidable,and the point is that how can we utilize such intuition and put it under a rational control.ChapterⅢwill analyze the logic judicial proof thinking style.It divides the logic into two types-formal logic and informal logic.About formal logic in a chronological order it discusses the main topics including Syllogism and Bayesian Theory.Next it generalize,refine,and comment the above three topics and then discusses Bayesian Theory with reference to the today’s orthodoxies and concrete cases.About the informal logic, with a very famous case(Sacco Case) it introduce the plausible reasoning, and then it talks about the Toulmin Model based on a full understanding of plausible reasoning.Finally it discusses the belief revision theory which is being used as a main approach to analyze the interactive relationship between the new evidence and already- formed beliefs.ChapterⅣsituates process analysis of judicial proof thinking.This chapter reconstructs and refines the process of judicial thinking based on the former analyses in above three chapters.In a macro level all the parts in judicial proof thinking are being processed spontaneously and there is no chronological order.The fact finder cannot ignore and eliminate the information which should be inadmissible in law mechanically and perfectly as we expect.In a micro level the dissertation analyze the Peng Yu case,practical and influential models in logic thinking and intuition thinking respectively.