When is lack of emotion a problem for justice? Four views on legal decision makers’ emotive life

Abstract

Reason and emotion are often cast as opposites. Yet emotion comes in a wide array of manifestations and has a variety of relations with its supposed opposite. Understanding emotion better is key to grasping how jurisprudence casts the relation between psychology and judicial decision making. Jurisprudents disagree on whether and when (lack of) emotion is a problem for decision makers in the justice system. The aim of this paper is to shed light on unarticulated assumptions in mainstream legal theory concerning this disagreement. The paper plots the different positions jurisprudents hold concerning the role of emotion in judicial decision making, regardless of where they stand on matters such the nature of law. The paper substantiates the claim that legal theorists often take an irrationalist approach to emotion but occasionally develop an alternative account that is closer to a cognitivist approach, the prime example of which is the claim that equity requires practical reasoning. Emotions are then cast as skills to be appreciated. The paper concludes that jurisprudence adopts a simplistic view of emotion. The study of the role of emotion has been hampered by the tendency to view emotions reductively. My classificatory effort warrants the conclusion that lack of emotion -understood as a skill in cognitivist terms -constitutes a problem for justice.

Judicial breakfast as an external factor in judicial decision making in courts

“…In legal education, the practitioners are taught the value of the importance of observing rule of law. The focus on the current legal rules is emphasized to create precedence with policy consideration ignored unless forced through the presence of precedent (Mindus, 2021;Mocan, 2020;and Owens, 2016). Public policy is considered a cost-effective argument as opposed to policy goals such as justice and equality.…”

“…The theory contends that the judges only consider the rules and law after making their decisions. Other realists note that the idiosyncrasies of the personality of judges and extraneous factors influence their decision-making process (Mitchell, 2019;Mindus, 2021). For instance, when judges decide on a case when hungry, they are likely to favor the status quo regardless of the facts and judicial rules.…”

The emotional sphere of an employee as an object of legal protection

“…Общий анализ литературы в этой области показывает, что юриспруденцией эмоций охватываются как проблемы влияния эмоций на принятие юридических решений и формирование правовых институтов (Bandes & Blumenthal, 2012), (Maroney, 2009), так и влияние правовой системы и правовых норм на формирование эмоций (Abrams & Keren, 2010), (Mindus, 2021).…”