Judicial decisions, intellectual virtues and the division of labour

Abstract

In this paper I argue that, given that one epistemic goal of judicial decision-making is to reach reasonably plausible decisions, the divisions of epistemic and cognitive labour help processes of judicial decision-making to better promote that goal under certain conditions. Those conditions concern the possession of a certain intellectual character (in particular, a humble and autonomous character) by the subjects exploiting those divisions of labour and the existence of a certain diversity among those subjects. So, in order to better promote reasonably plausible decisions, we should take measures that make it likely that those divisions of labour are exploited under those conditions. Given this, some prescriptive recommendations are made.