Understanding the Murdaugh Guilty Verdict

 

Understanding the Murdaugh verdict. This is not half-baked psychology, but rather a rather new form of philosophy. 

Guilty as charged came down the verdict – and in record time for a six-week trial. How did they do it?  You would think with such a lengthy trial it might take at minimum several days simply to review testimony, if only to confirm some agreement on the testimony presented. You might say they made an emotional response to their feelings. You could say having listened to all that testimony for weeks, their opinion about guilt or innocence evolved over time. You could even think the evidence was overwhelmingly complex. Thus, they really didn’t understand what they heard.

In fact, all are probably correct. Yet, there seemed to be no analytical examination or even review of the facts of the case, being the verdict came so quickly. So what did they do? What they did is what philosophers have been studying for several decades. They used epistemic logic.

That is, the jury applied the operators of “knowing” and “believing.” In brief, consider the operator of ‘Knowing.” Define K(a, p), where Player a knows proposition p is true. Similarly, B(a, p) means Player a believes proposition p is correct. For example, Player a knows p, i.e. the dangers of climate change are correct. Or B(a, p) means Player a believes p, i.e. Murdaugh is guilty. That’s it, no further discussion is necessary, except possibly for consistency with other determinations if they are even considered. These functions transcend logical inference. We’ll not go into the many details of this logic, but to indicate these epistemic logics are important also in computer science.

Either of these is likely how the jury resolved this highly complex, multi-faceted trial. You could call it “gut” instinct or just a “sense” of the truth. Possibly. You and I apply these operators, K and B, all the time. How many times have you said, “I just know it.” Justification is not needed. No scientist pursues a line of reasoning thinking “maybe it works this way.” You must commit. Doubt deprecates progress. Lawyers parade alternative theories to juries hoping one of them appeals to their “Knowing” or “Believing” operators.

You may have thought reasoning is limited to “if this, then that” Not so. Even the logicians/philosophers recognize how the human mind works.