A Question of Plausibility
What is it really that moves the courts to determine whether or not accident at work claims are valid? For surely, being the bastion of logic and rationality, they do not just rely on mere feeling to decide cases. The answer is plausibility. Simply speaking, the courts make up their minds as to the merits of a claim by asking how close to the actual facts of the case is the version being stated by the claimant and the defendant. That is the root, the cornerstone. If we were to reduce the entire complex process of judicial interpretation in one line, we would say that it was the final product of a metaphysical tug-of-war between credibility and impossibility.
To win your claim, therefore, you should strengthen that side of your argument which deals mainly with establishing the plausibility of your story, and reserve for the end that part which attacks the character of the defendant, whether overtly or subtly. By showing the courts how easy to believe your story is, and by only adding so much criticism of the defendant’s character, what you are in fact doing is to prove by your own example. You are in effect telling them that you trust the truth to win your claim.
Ad Hominem Fallacies
Some people demanding accident at work claims disbelieve that ad hominem attacks against their employers are fallacious. For them, proving that their employers were irresponsible and careless even before the accident occurred is one positive point that should be taken in these claimants’ side. A person, they say, who can be proved to be habituated to a certain vice is highly suspect of committing an injurious act in which that certain vice was indeed evident. It does not take a genius to see that there exists, even prior to any legal investigation, that there is a high probability that a broken vase and a clumsy person had some destructive relation.
The answer to these charges, in fact the answer to all character smearing, is the fact that people change. Of course a person who was known to have been expressive of a certain attitude can be expected to continue expressing that same attitude in the near future. The psychological induction which we every day apply regarding others is almost always right. But the human soul and the human mind, unlike objects which can be reduced to laws by induction, are never in stasis. Who can say that a person will not choose to stop acting in a vicious manner starting tomorrow, even if he has done so today? Character assassination is thus untenable. It disregards the unlikely but possible shift in attitudes even by people with low morals.
What is it really that moves the courts to determine whether or not accident at work claims are valid? For surely, being the bastion of logic and rationality, they do not just rely on mere feeling to decide cases. The answer is plausibility. Simply speaking, the courts make up their minds as to the merits of a claim by asking how close to the actual facts of the case is the version being stated by the claimant and the defendant. That is the root, the cornerstone. If we were to reduce the entire complex process of judicial interpretation in one line, we would say that it was the final product of a metaphysical tug-of-war between credibility and impossibility.
To win your claim, therefore, you should strengthen that side of your argument which deals mainly with establishing the plausibility of your story, and reserve for the end that part which attacks the character of the defendant, whether overtly or subtly. By showing the courts how easy to believe your story is, and by only adding so much criticism of the defendant’s character, what you are in fact doing is to prove by your own example. You are in effect telling them that you trust the truth to win your claim.
Ad Hominem Fallacies
Some people demanding accident at work claims disbelieve that ad hominem attacks against their employers are fallacious. For them, proving that their employers were irresponsible and careless even before the accident occurred is one positive point that should be taken in these claimants’ side. A person, they say, who can be proved to be habituated to a certain vice is highly suspect of committing an injurious act in which that certain vice was indeed evident. It does not take a genius to see that there exists, even prior to any legal investigation, that there is a high probability that a broken vase and a clumsy person had some destructive relation.
The answer to these charges, in fact the answer to all character smearing, is the fact that people change. Of course a person who was known to have been expressive of a certain attitude can be expected to continue expressing that same attitude in the near future. The psychological induction which we every day apply regarding others is almost always right. But the human soul and the human mind, unlike objects which can be reduced to laws by induction, are never in stasis. Who can say that a person will not choose to stop acting in a vicious manner starting tomorrow, even if he has done so today? Character assassination is thus untenable. It disregards the unlikely but possible shift in attitudes even by people with low morals.
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