Enhancing decisions in the courtroom: exploring a duty to enhance judicial cognition

This doctoral thesis examines the ethical justifications for a moral duty for judges to enhance their cognition and its compatibility with existing legal frameworks on judicial liability, professional duties, and human rights. The study is driven by empirical evidence showing that judges are susceptible to implicit biases, which can unconsciously influence their perceptions and decisions, posing a threat to judicial impartiality. Current legal rules focus mainly on explicit biases, neglecting the subtle effects of implicit biases that operate subconsciously. To address this, cognitive enhancement for judges has been proposed to mitigate these biases. The thesis begins by defining implicit bias and exploring how it affects judicial decision-making, considering the environmental and personal factors that contribute to biased thinking. It then examines the reasoning processes underlying legal decisions, identifying their limitations and potential areas for improvement. The study critically assesses debiasing strategies frequently proposed in legal scholarship and reconceptualizes some as cognitive enhancement strategies. Next, it systematically maps biomedical interventions with cognitive enhancement potential, reviewing experimental results to assess their applicability in judicial settings. The thesis explores different ethical theories that could justify a moral duty for judges to enhance their cognition, evaluating this duty through the lenses of beneficence, procedural justice, and virtue ethics. Ethical constraints on establishing this duty are also analyzed. Finally, the thesis assesses whether existing norms on judicial liability, professional conduct, and human rights support or hinder a moral duty for cognitive enhancement, with a focus on the European context. The study concludes with a summary of findings and recommendations for addressing implicit bias in the courtroom, suggesting avenues for future research.