Beyond Reasonable Doubt: The Evolution of a Concept

Abstract

The iconic phrase ‘proof beyond reasonable doubt’, which for well over a century has been associated with the Anglo-American legal system, is one that calls attention to the concepts of judgement, fact, evidence, credibility, doubt, probability - concepts that have for many generations occupied theologians, casuists, scientists, philosophers, legal scholars and, more recently, literary scholars. My focus on the origin and development of the concept of beyond reasonable doubt and the more recent reservations about its value in the legal sphere can be illuminated by the contributions of disciplinary traditions that extend beyond the legal arena. My chapter will suggest both how legal investigations dealing with questions of fact, doubt, judgement and certainty have drawn on non-legal evidentiary traditions and how these in turn have drawn on legal conceptualisations of standards of proof. The chapter also considers older and more recent stresses and strains on the beyond reasonable doubt concept.