I know ‘Compassionate Conservatism’ crashed and burned, but is it really necessary for the GOP to explicitly come out as being against empathy?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I am firmly against empathy as it pertains to the GOP’s current state of affairs.
Maybe someone should remind him of all the letters from DC insiders requesting empathy for poor Scooter Libby during his trial and sentencing. I’ll bet he was one of those letter-writers, too.
Jon Stewart did a nice round-up showing all the rethugs and Faux news spouting off on the dreaded empathy and it’s just code talking you know for being pro-abortion.
The party of pro-torture and against empathy-sounds like a real winning combination to me. How do you say you’re the Big Tent Party when empathy becomes a dirty word? I hope they keep on with the stupid until there isn’t one rethug left standing.
It’s the Big Tent of Freedom party, and there’s no room for empathy under its glorious display.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0409/Jim_DeMints_big_tent_of_freedom.html
What I love about conservative intellectuals is that, as a general rule they are just as boorish and ignorant as their less educated brethren, only they put on a better show. But don’t listen to me. Let’s hear what those well-known bleeding-heart libruls, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Antoninus (1389-1459), Bishop of Florence, have to say on this question.
Janet Coleman, in A History of Political Thought: from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (2000), p.76, writes:
“…Aristotle’s Rhetoric (I, 13, 1374a-b) would have made it clear … that legal statements, being universal and therefore general, are not applicable to each and every case but only to most. Hence, actions which should be leniently treated are cases for prudent judgement and equity, looking not to the letter of the law but to the intention of the legislator; the prudent man’s judgment of particular cases according to his own developed sense of equity is what enables him, in the circumstances, to pardon human weaknesses.”
David Summers, in The Judgment of Sense, Cambridge Unuiversity Press, 1990, p. 268, writes:[Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics says that] Human prudence… arises primarily from experience, is associated with opinion and deliberation, and … might be associated with the vis cogitativa, or particular intellect. … Aristotle also considers a number of kinds of judgment subsidiary to prudence: synesis, for example (which Aquinas calls “bonus sensus”), or gnomon, which is the good judgment of judges.”
….
Saint Antoninus provides a summary of these ideas as they were repeated in the Renaissance. He divides the practical intellect into ethics, economics, and politics. The chief virtue of the practical intellect is prudence, which consists of three parts — inquiring and discussing, election, and setting into execution what has been “well judged.” Prudence is right reason about things to be done — recta ratio agibilium — and Antoninus appeals to Seneca in concluding that it has three parts to which all kinds of prudence listed by Aristotle in the Ethics may be reduced. These are recogitatio or memoratio of the past, ordinatio praesentium agendorum [right ordering of what must be done in the present circumstances] and providentia futurorum.” [foreseeing the likely future outcome]
Empathy? That’s for wimps & wussies. Real men don’t need not want any ’empathy.’ When the going gets tough, real men just dig in and work harder.
Republican Party = Empathy Free Zone.
Wow. Michael Savage isn’t allowed to travel to the UK because he’s an asshole.
Truth in advertising is a step in the right direction for them…
I’m going to make an educated guess on the real Republican judicial selection formula.
1.Is gratitude to people you know more important to you than empathy with people you don’t know? If the answer is ‘yes’ continue to question 2. If ‘no’ then we thank you for your time and goodbye!
2. Are you likely to feel more grateful to those who have been of material benefit to you rather than primarily friendship or affection? If the answer is ‘yes’ continue to final question, if it is ‘no’ see you around…loser.
3. Are you willing to deny a plaintiff suing the government of the most basic Constitutional protections if a government attorney asserts that a trial would jeopardize US secret operations? If the anser is ‘yes’ then congratulations, Your Honor!
I’m about as far from being a lawyer as it’s possible to be, but my understanding is that in our legal system law must be balanced by equity. And as I understand the concept, determining what is equitable requires empathy. Even if we wanted judges to be unfeeling calculators we could not banish empathy from our courtrooms.