The Evidence Theory Of Bentham And Its Inspiration

Jeremy Bentham(Jeremy Bentham,1748-1832)was a brilliant evidence scholar.One person who study the theory of evidence can not avoid the influence of Bentham completely.In 1803-1813,Bentham wrote the works of evidence.He was critical of disadvantages of British judicial system and defects of previous evidence achievements.Bentham pulled utilitarianism in evidence theory as philosophy foundation and constructed the natural system which abandoned disadvantages of British judicial system as judicial system foundation.Bentham absorbed the essence of British empirical philosophy to create fiction theory which is the philosophy foundation.The evidence theory of Bentham which is based on the three foundations had great influence in the United States and the United Kingdom.In our country,the field of evidence has many problems,including the division of evidence theory,the lack of standard of evidence legislation,the missing of evidence evaluation method.A comprehensive and systematic study of Bentham may have great significance.The first chapter is about the background of Bentham's evidence theory.In the era of the Bentham,British judicial system had many drawbacks.Three aspects concerning court organization,litigation system,the legal profession are written to show the feature of British justice.In the era of the Bentham,British empirical philosophy was popular in British.Bentham's fiction philosophy draws on the essence of John Locke's empirical philosophy.Seven aspects of Locke's empirical philosophy are produced to show the connection.In eighteenth Century,the British judicial practice had formed a lot of rules of evidence which were fragmented.The evidence scholars of eighteenth Century tried to construct a basic principle to connect the scattered rules of evidence.‘The Best Evidence Rule' of Gilbert had great influence,but also provided a target for Bentham to criticize.The best evidence theory was based on the theory of probability of Locke,including the classification system of evidence weight and the elimination of evidence.The second chapter introduces the three foundations of Bentham's evidence theory,including the foundation of value,the foundation of juridical system,the foundation of philosophy.Bentham,as the founder of utilitarianism,applied utilitarianism to many fields,including the field of evidence.Bentham did not clear the meaning of utilitarianism in evidence field.This essay summarizes the evidence meaning of utilitarianism and discusses the uniformity of value base between the evidence theory and juridical system.The juridical system of Bentham,called natural system,is opposed to British judicial system of 19 th century.Bentham abandoned the technical judicial drawbacks to create natural system.This essay compared the natural system with the technical system to highlight Bentham's breakthrough in the judicial theory.Bentham's theory of philosophy is called fiction theory,which is composed of two parts: ontology and epistemology.The ontology of fiction theory is closely related to Locke's theory of two properties.In the meantime,the epistemology of fiction shared common formulation with Locke's empirical theory.The third chapter discusses the specific content of Bentham's theory of evidence: the non-exclusion principle and the theory of free proof.The non-exclusion principle,based on the value choice of truth maximization,affirms non-exclusion of evidence,claims not to establish evidence rules.Free proof theory advocates of free evaluation of evidence,which is contrary to Gilbert's view,because of the different elaboration of probability.Free evaluation of evidence gives judges greater discretion,Bentham set up the degree of persuasion and negative speculation method for judges to evaluate evidence.The fourth chapter discusses the influence of Bentham's evidence theory on Britain and America and Its Enlightenment to China.Bentham's evidence theory based on the three foundations has a great influence on the evidence research and judicial practice in United States and UK.They develop Bentham's evidence theory to pursue application of modern time.Bentham's basic theory and concrete evidence theory provide a methodology for extending the scope of evidence research.Bentham's evidence theory has important reference significance to the theory of evidence and the practice of judicial practice in China.