New Philosophical Foundations for Evidence-Based Law – Hardcover

By exploiting recent work on the philosophy of causality, this book presents a new, principled approach to evaluating whether a law works as intended.

The book provides the first philosophically well-motivated account of Evidence-Based Law (EBL), an emerging field that seeks to use the best evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of proposed laws and regulations. It puts forward practical methods for evaluating the effectiveness of laws, arguing in favour of a new approach grounded in the principles of Evidential Pluralism, a philosophical theory of causal enquiry. Using worked examples, these methods are presented in a clear, step-by-step way, offering a framework that balances both empirical and normative considerations and has the potential to lead to more effective laws.

New Philosophical Foundations for Evidence-Based Law will appeal to scholars, students and practitioners of law, philosophy of law and public policy, as well as researchers in the health and social sciences and philosophy of science and epistemology.