how can deterrence work given that a criminal through the act of commiting a crime proves themselves indifferent to the consequences.

the only penalty worth commiting crime for is the economic one. a company is forced to pay a fine for pollution for example; if the fine is lower than the cost of not polluting, they would continue to ‘rationally’ commit the crime.

the ‘how strong is your belief in your innocence?’ test is a poor system of justice, as sierra previously pointed out.

Alternatively, if this didn’t happen, what is the likelyhood that someone who is accused is, to varying degrees, aware that the priests are acting as the arbiters and deciding whether or not they are guilty? In this scenario, wouldn’t people accused of crimes base their decision on whether or not to accept the ordeal based on their estimate of the probability of the priest believing them? This would mitigate the nonbeliever/skeptic problem (unless things were radically different back then, most skeptics probably didn’t need convincing that the preists were running a crooked game) and help prevent the ‘all people must be found guilty because no one believes in the system’ scenario.

Sierra Black bringing in Monty Python gives me the chance to remark on a strange fact: trial by ordeal disappeared just when the European intelligentsia started to believe in witches. Contrary to popular belief (or at least contrary to my own belief before I read Trevor-Roper’s essay on witch hunting), during the “dark” ages it was heresy to believe in the existence of witches. Only around the time when Tommaso d’Aquino reconciled faith with reason, the European intelligentsia started to use witch hunting as a means to keep down the rednecks.

In reality the priests can and I’m sure did game the system to suit their ends, which don’t always line up with uncovering the truth behind a crime.

Bingo. This is exactly what bothers me about this paper, and I’ll blog more about it (and about the larger issues it raises) in the next few days.

More seriously, this sounds completely insane. I mean, the caveats you include where there is no corruption on the part of the priests, the jurists, the defendants or the public might make it work reasonably well in many cases…but that’s never been anyone’s reality. In reality the priests can and I’m sure did game the system to suit their ends, which don’t always line up with uncovering the truth behind a crime.

We know in modern times that guilty defendants don’t always confess to avoid horrible punishments; many are willing to go to their deaths protesting their innocence rather than admit to a crime they committed.

Likewise, the innocent often confess guilt when motivated by fear, mental illness or the desire to protect a loved one. There’s nothing the ‘trial by ordeal’ system to deal with these problems, even if the priests and officials running the pot of boiling water were all altruistically in on the scam to weed out the guilty by scaring them with pots of water.