Verdictive Foreseeability

Verdicts state conclusions rather than reasons. Official verdicts can ‘make something so’. In holding individuals responsible, foreseeability verdicts reflect folk morality. In factive mode they can be true or false. In attributive mode they are normative. Many other legal concepts exhibit similar ambivalence. Status, context and Austinian illocutionary force are needed to distinguish these modes. Verdicts could appear at each stage of algorithmic reasoning but reasons contributing to one verdict should not reappear at a later stage. But neither folk morality nor legal reasoning are algorithmic.