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7 - Group Deliberative Virtues and Legal Epistemology

from Part III - On Evidential Inferences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2022

By
Amalia Amaya
Edited by
Jordi Ferrer Beltrán  and
Carmen Vázquez
Jordi Ferrer Beltrán
Affiliation:
Universitat de Girona
Carmen Vázquez
Affiliation:
Universitat de Girona
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Summary

Collective agents play a critical role in the legal determination of facts. The jury continues to be the primary fact-finding institution in many legal cultures, and multi-member courts are also entrusted, in some legal systems, with the task of determining the facts at trial. Notwithstanding the relevance of group decision-making in evidential reasoning in law, legal epistemology for the most part embraces a highly individualistic perspective. A focus on the individual processes of legal decision-making is also a characteristic of attempts to address problems of legal epistemology by using the virtue theory framework. In this chapter, my aim is to contribute to the study of the social dimensions of deliberation about factual issues in law. More specifically, I will examine the relevance of group deliberative virtues, i.e., the character traits that enable sound group deliberation, to the epistemology of legal proof.

Keywords

Collective agentsjurorsevidential reasoningdecision-makingtheory virtue
Type
Chapter
Information
Evidential Legal Reasoning
Crossing Civil Law and Common Law Traditions
 , pp. 125 - 137
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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