you specifically asked me to cite the evidence; so, i did:

“Really? I would LOVE for you to cite some of this ‘evidence’.”

I already laid out my argument (logic requires emotion) and I even gave you the gist of one of the studies above should you be too busy or lazy to read the citations yourself. There is not much else I can do for you.

En hora buena…

I appreciate the time you took to cite those resources. However, I have enough to read already and would like to hear your thoughts and reasoning on the subject. What exactly are you implying, according to your resources, about Aaron’s understanding of logic and emotion?

I have been debating for almost 10 years and to suggest, to well read people, to go read more books is a bit lazy and intellectually dishonest in most cases. I will assume this is not the case now.

Please tell me your thoughts, based on your sources and please cite the information not an entire book.

Thnaks,

Zeus

Glad to see someone interested in science and not mere ideology.

Here is a book to start you off:
Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, Avon Books, 1994 (It’[It’s a bit dated but the fundamentals are still sound). Details here: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1963

Here is a recent study regarding wisdom and its link to emotion and altruism:
Thomas W. Meeks; Dilip V. Jeste. Neurobiology of Wisdom: A Literature Overview. Archives of General Psychiatry, 2009. The gist:

“Meeks and Jeste focused primarily on functional neuroimaging studies, studies which measure changes in blood flow or metabolic alterations in the brain, as well as on neurotransmitter functions and genetics. They found, for example, that pondering a situation calling for altruism activates the medial pre-frontal cortex, while moral decision-making is a combination of rational (the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which plays a role in sustaining attention and working memory), emotional/social (medial pre-frontal cortex), and conflict detection (the anterior cingulate cortex, sometimes also associated with a so-called “sixth sense”) functions.”

You may also want to consult John Cacciopo’s work which can be searched at http://wisdomresearch.org/. Most of his recent work is on empathy and mirror neurons.

If you have any questions or require further leads, please do not hesitate to ask.

En hora buena.

Really? I would LOVE for you to cite some of this “evidence”.

Thanks,

Zeus

Aaron–

My point about logic and emotion was one of actual cogitation and choice. You spoke of personal goals and the drive to achieve them–I did read this but found it irrelevant to the problem I brought up. I was emphasizing your unexamined Cartesian assumptions regarding logic and emotion. While some have viewed emotions has mostly tending to cloud the light of reason, not everyone does. Narcissists and psychopaths can be logical if you equate logic with emotion-free and empathy-free calculation–this does not make them better decision makers than those who calculate with their emotional and empathetic capacities intact. The weight of evidence coming out of evolutionary biology and social neuroscience is stacked against your simplistic understanding of logic and emotion. That was my point.

Since you feel the need to address legal interpretation, what say you about equity? That aspect of jurisprudence grew precisely out of the need to address injustice not covered by a remedy at law. Without empathy, how would a judge proceed in the absence of writ?

In your view, what exactly is a “solid exegesis of law and examination of past practice.” Why focus on exegesis anyway when the adversarial system has never been purely statutory or governed by code. I would think you were French, if I didn’t know better. If by past practice you mean stare decisis, I’m sorry to disappoint you–that tradition has been watered down repeatedly primarily by the so-called conservatives on the court. If this romantic deference to past practice, i.e. stare decisis, were real then I would expect the decisions of the Warren court to be in full force.

“The conflict of interest arises from those experiences that had a particular affect on a candidate. If your wife falsely accused you of spousal abuse, would you feel comfortable in front of a judge who was abused by her husband?”

As most of your examples of emotional cloudiness and baggage implicate women, I think perhaps there is something else going on in your reasoning. Only you can answer that. For now, I will say that at the very least you are confusing bias with empathy. Some people who are the abused or downtrodden as you put it end up with the exact opposite attitude. Some of those people might say: “hey, i was abused too; that is no excuse for what you did! I know about abuse; you weren’t abused.” Being too sympathetic or too harsh based on the judge’s having “been there” is bias either way.

But trying to step into one’s shoes to understand why a person did this or that thing is precisely what a jury does. It also what a judge must do in a bench trial. Would you remove the centrality of mens rea from criminal law because of your fear of empathy?
Perhaps I am misunderstanding your point. That tends to happen to me when people use distinct concepts such as empathy, bias, and emotion interchangeably.

Finally something we might be able to agree on. Sotomayor scares me, but I’m sure I could be scared even more with another candidate.

Prevent her from being seated and we could get something really scary.

“inherent physiological … differences”. A possibility she “abhors less” than others. “gender and national origins”

Are you sure you want her as a judge?

Sorry Aaron, but logic requires emotion. Our brains are wired that way. Without emotional commitment to a goal our rational faculty becomes useless (e.g. it is impossible to choose the best course for crossing a busy street if I could care less whether I live or die).

I’m starting to wonder if you even read my post. Here is what I said regarding emotions: “Although emotions are helpful when providing a person with personal drive to achieve goals, they tend to cloud judgment.”

So, your first paragraph was unnecessary.

Wisdom has always included logic, information, understanding, experience, intuition, and God forbid, empathy.

I agree. Wisdom includes characteristics like empathy, but this characteristic is almost entirely irrelevant to legal interpretation. For instance, a mother would be wise to cut an equal piece of pie for each of her three children as to avoid subsequent squabbles about fairness. This decision is based more upon empathy than it is logic. A logical mother would preface her decision with a lecture how unimportant it would be if one kid received a slightly larger piece than the other in the overall scheme of things.

Keeping on theme, a Supreme Court Justice ought to be concerned about making the most logical decision based upon solid exegesis of law and examination of past practice than trying to placate certain ethnic groups.

p.s. you might as well argue that white people (the opposite of your downtrodden) should not be allowed to preside over cases involving white people (say in a trial where a downtrodden Puerto Rican woman killed a rich white guy) because there might be a conflict of interest.

I think you missed my point entirely. My point is that we ought not to choose candidates on the basis of ethnicity - period. This goes for whites, blacks, Asians, and yes, Puerto Ricans.

The conflict of interest arises from those experiences that had a particular affect on a candidate. If your wife falsely accused you of spousal abuse, would you feel comfortable in front of a judge who was abused by her husband? You should probably answer this question if we are to have an open discussion about the role of empathy in legal interpretation.