Abstract

Virtue Jurisprudence for Jurors In the ethics of legal practice, virtue jurisprudence as applied to professional legal roles, such as the judge, says that the role requires certain role-virtues. This article considers bringing this approach to the legal but standardly non-professional role of trial juror and a problem with doing so. Performing the juror role well requires certain judicial role-virtues. Yet due to the trial jury’s function within a legal system, and not by accident, the juror role is among other things a lay (non-legal expert) role that is transiently occupied, unlike a typical legal professional role. But from a standard view point, virtues are seen as dispositions inculcated through repeated practice and, thus, they are anything but transient. So, virtue jurisprudence seems, on one hand, apposite and, on the other hand, ill-suited to the juror role. Without solving the problem entirely, the article ends by suggesting that it points to some useful resources in developing a virtue-theoretic account of the juror role.