Law in Contemporary Society

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EmpathyAndTheLaw 5 - 02 Apr 2010 - Main.KrishnaSutaria
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 I am lucky, in that my name begins with a C and Eben edited my paper a long time ago. Still, it took me some time to inure myself to the scary red ink and actually digest his comments. His notes, along with this class, raise some issues I find both interesting and very complicated and I welcome your thoughts and help in sorting them out. (You can read his edits here - CarolineFerrisWhiteFirstPaper)

If I understand correctly, Eben sees empathy and empathic responses as one way of distinguishing between criminal/antisocial and social behavior. The ready distinction seems to be between those who feel for and can imagine the experiences of others, leading them to treat others with respect, and those who for whatever reason can't imagine the experiences of others, and so think only of their own interests and desires. But it's not always so clear: Eben points to the case of the empathic individual who nonetheless behaves antisocially, and the complex system of internal justifications this creates. Probably most people who commit crimes fall into this category.

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 -- KalliopeKefallinos - 01 Apr 2010

You say a lot here, so I will only comment on the multiple personalities issue. I do not believe Eben was saying we should strive towards cohesion. I don't even think cohesion is possible. The goal is rather one of self-awareness. For example, since Eben mentioned this phenomenon, I did further reading on the topic and began to try to pay better attention to myself as I interacted with others, waiting to see if I could decipher different personalities emerging in different contexts with different people. I personally did notice changes-- but I won't go into them here. The next step would be to understand whyyy this or that personality was created or why it emerges in particular contexts. The result is learning how to better understand and then control oneself on a deeper level-- that is, to learn to exist with multiple personalities and use them to your advantage.

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To the writer above: I think self-awareness of the kind that you allude to eventually leads to cohesion or something like it. If I am aware of all my roles and personalities, and know which one to marshal in any given situation, then at the very least, I have a dominant personality that regulates those activities. The complex process of self-observation that you just described seems to involve a coherent "you" that watched, objectively, what went on, with all the other "yous". To me, that objective observer implies some over-arching personality whose goal is to integrate all the other personalities into a functional framework so that you get what you need (or don't go plumb mad). Can't that functional framework be seen as some attempt at cohesion?

Slightly tangentially, it'd be interesting to explore how much of our own internal social organization, if it can be called that, mirrors society itself.

-- KrishnaSutaria - 02 Apr 2010


Revision 5r5 - 02 Apr 2010 - 04:55:38 - KrishnaSutaria
Revision 4r4 - 01 Apr 2010 - 19:33:20 - KalliopeKefallinos
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