Witnesses: From “Information providers” to Epistemic Agents

Abstract

In this article we evaluate the dispossession of epistemic agency that witnesses often suffer. We argue that this is not only problematic from a general epistemic point of view, but also for the fulfillment of the epistemic purposes of judicial processes. We examine ordinary civil procedure in Chile, where interaction with witnesses is marked by distrust of them. We present a paradigmatic case of the normal dynamics, and we show that it is epistemically unsatisfactory. Then, we make the consequentialist-veritist epistemological model that supports what we call “the myth of the incompatibility between efficiency and recognition.” explicit. It seems to support the aforementioned dynamic by implying that favoring alternative practices that allow for greater recognition of different agents would result in a loss of effectiveness of the processes. This model is far from being obvious or intuitive, and is rather based on substantive theoretical commitments. We show that under an alternative responsibilist model, the recognition of witnesses contributes centrally to the epistemic quality of judicial processes, thus blocking the argument that leads to the myth of incompatibility.