Chapter 71 <Human life is murdered by you>

In the sixteenth chapter of "Lao Can's Travels", it tells the story of a confused county magistrate Gangbi who misdiagnosed a major murder case. The verdict on Gangbi in the book is written like this: The yamen servants had brought the father and daughter of the Wei family to them long ago, but they all looked like they were half dead.The two knelt in the hall, and Gang Bi took out the one thousand taels of silver note and the five thousand five hundred taels of proof from his arms and asked someone to show it to his father and daughter.His father and daughter replied: I don't know why.Gang Bi laughed loudly and said: You don't know, you will know when I tell you!Yesterday a man named Hu Ju came to worship me. He first gave me a thousand taels of silver and said, "Your case, let me try to get rid of it; if you get it out, I will tell you in detail if you have more money: If you didn't murder someone's life." Yes, why is your family willing to spend thousands of taels of silver to manage it?This is the first evidence. If the person was not murdered by you, I told him that according to the calculation of five hundred taels per life, it should be 6,500 taels. Your person in charge should say: the person's life was not caused by my family. Zhaoxue, seven thousand eight thousand taels is all right, but he dare not agree to six thousand five hundred taels.Why did he settle the score according to five hundred taels without any objection?This is the second evidence.I advise you to confess sooner or later, lest you suffer from many instruments of torture.The father and daughter kowtowed repeatedly and said: Master Qingtian!Really wronged!

(Note: Gangbi mistook Wei's father and daughter as serious offenders who murdered a family of 13, and Wei's servants offered bribes to plead for forgiveness. Gangbi justified his argument based on this) You murdered human life, this is the conclusion of Gang Bi's judgment.Based on the facts stated in the book, this conclusion is wrong.So, how did Gang Bi come to this conclusion?It turned out that he had applied two reasonings in his decision, the full form of which is: (1) If human life was not murdered by you, your family would not have put out thousands of taels of silver for handling; your family has already put out thousands of taels of silver for handling;

Therefore, human life was murdered by you. (2) If the human life was not murdered by you, your family would not agree to settle accounts according to the five hundred taels of human life; Your family promised to settle accounts according to the rule of five hundred and two lives; Therefore, human life was murdered by you. This is a negative formula applying two sufficient conditions of hypothetical reasoning (from negating the latter to negating the antecedent). The reasoning form is correct, but the two hypothetical premises cannot be established, and the latter cannot be deduced from the antecedent.Because the dark official government in the old society opened the gate to the south, so don't come in if you have a reason and no money.

Under such circumstances, some people who have been falsely accused and suffered innocent injustices often have to resort to bribery in order to settle the lawsuit without incident.Therefore, it cannot be proved that the briber must be a criminal based on the fact that the bribe is given.From a logical point of view, Gang Bi's reasoning in deciding the case made a sophistical error of false premise.