tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post2864779561766816044..comments2023-12-31T03:18:37.403-06:00Comments on "E pur si muove!": Judges: Don't Rely on EmpathyLester Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14746157071827337723noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-87247478778344295572014-01-26T10:39:34.619-06:002014-01-26T10:39:34.619-06:00You cannot rely on empathy in business. Witness m...You cannot rely on empathy in business. Witness my recent experience with a scam artist: http://scamartistblogconsulting.blogspot.com/<br /><br />It will soon be documented ad nauseum in some articles and possibly a lawsuit. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. I am going public.<br /><br />David Zalewski, BS Philosophy and Chemistry, 1986, one of Lester's first FN students.MG Bloggerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11771030765133570649noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-5934369425182655292009-06-12T21:05:58.221-05:002009-06-12T21:05:58.221-05:00Whether you wish to admit it, justice is not blind...Whether you wish to admit it, justice is not blind and although minorities often claim discrimination based on race and class, it's always been economic advanage ala OJ Simpson and his "dream team". Conservatives are more concerned about break down of the economic order, because economics is 90% of history. The appointment of a minority justice is just a tempest in the boiling teapot of a huge change in the economic order which is the real story.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-48397092401952372162009-06-12T15:10:39.358-05:002009-06-12T15:10:39.358-05:00Actually, I was trying to not take the Sotomayor b...Actually, I was trying to not take the Sotomayor bait but ... if you go to the text of that Berkeley speech (see link in post below) she seems to be discussing another person's defense of the traditional idea of rational fairness (Cederbloom was her name I think) and -- if I understand her rightly -- arguing <i>against</i> it.Lester Hunthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14746157071827337723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-66679632464843571452009-06-12T11:03:16.957-05:002009-06-12T11:03:16.957-05:00I think the error being made here is that the just...I think the error being made here is that the justice was put in the position of many minority people. Namely she was explaining that she was making her decisions from the pov of her ethnicity and gender. In the past white males and the majority did not have to explain their pov's because it was privelaged by their ethnicity and gender. Just witness the Dred Scott decision and the need for a Thurgood Marshall on the SCOTUS to advance the minority status in this country. Santamayor deserves great respect for how courageously she was making this argument and the right wing took the bait like blood in the water. It's amazing how the Obamanistas put this stuff out there and the right wing looks like a bunch of ninnies going after it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-14611686892236936492009-06-09T19:03:40.457-05:002009-06-09T19:03:40.457-05:00In the eighteenth century "sympathy" (Gr...In the eighteenth century "sympathy" (Gr. with + feeling) meant understanding the feelings of another by putting yourself in their shoes and feeling what they feel, eg., in Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. Nowadays, empathy (Gr.: in + feeling) means what sympathy used to mean. The Wikipedia page on empathy has almost twenty definitions of "empathy," all attributed to particular theorists and authors. All or virtually all seem to mention either sharing the feelings of another or putting yourself in their shoes, or both.<br /><br />On the other hand, we have a perfectly good English word for understanding the feelings of another: "understanding."Lester Hunthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14746157071827337723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22657443.post-12137193166250583662009-06-09T16:20:45.379-05:002009-06-09T16:20:45.379-05:00Empathy in action, as I understand it, is only the...Empathy in action, as I understand it, is only the <i>understanding</i> of another person's feelings, and not putting oneself inside the other person <i>and sharing</i> his or her experience (which would, presumably but not necessarily, impart some bias to the adjudicator). That would be called <i>sympathy</i>. And, if one is to employ objectification as a means of facilitating judgments, of making them as unambiguous as simple math, one would be committing the sin so decried in the The Brothers Karamazov and L'Etrange.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com