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22 J. Ethics & Soc. Phil. 212 (2022)
Epistemic Trespassing and Expert Witness Testimony

handle is hein.journals/jetshy22 and id is 219 raw text is: Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy https://doi.org/lo.26556/jesp.v2zi.1599 VOL. 22, NO. 2 - JULY 2022 © 2022 Author EPISTEMIC TRESPASSING AND EXPERT WITNESS TESTIMONY Mark Satta ATHAN BALLANTYNE recently coined the term epistemic trespassing to refer to the act of judging matters outside one's field of expertise.' Mikkel Gerken has examined a specific type of epistemic trespassing, expert trespassing testimony (i.e., epistemic trespassing via testimony).2 Based on his conclusion that expert trespassing testimony can be both morally and epis- temically problematic, Gerken offers the following guideline: When S provides expert trespassing testimony in a context where it may likely and/or reasonably be taken to be expert testimony, S should qualify her testimony to indicate that it does not amount to expert testimony.3 In this paper, I assess Gerken's guideline-which he calls the Expert Tres- passing Guideline-as applied to expert witness testimony in a court of law. I conclude that, depending on how it is interpreted, Gerken's guideline either fails to give relevant guidance or gives the wrong guidance when applied to expert witness testimony in court. I argue instead for the following: No Courtroom Trespassing Principle: Those participating as expert wit- nesses in legal trials should not make any claim outside their area of ex- pertise if the claim is of the type that normally could only be offered by a properly qualified expert witness.4 1 Ballantyne, Epistemic Trespassing, 367. This leads to the question of what counts as judg- ing matters. I assume that reaching a conclusion by accepting another's testimony does not count as judging the matter for purposes of epistemic trespassing. Rather, epistemic tres- passing seems, at its core, to be about relying on oneself to reach a conclusion in an expert domain where one lacks the epistemic foundation for such self-reliance. 2 Gerken, Expert Trespassing Testimony and the Ethics of Science Communication, 299, 300. 3 Gerken, Expert Trespassing Testimony and the Ethics of Science Communication, 299, 301, 310. 4 The qualification of the type that normally could only be offered by a properly qualified expert witness is necessary because in laying the foundation for expert testimony, an ex- 212

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