Abstract
The traditional perspective on emotions assumes an unassailable dualism between emotions and reason. For common sense, including legal common sense, emotions are always dangerous and have nothing to do with rational decision-making. Nonetheless, the Aristotelian perspective regarding the relationship between emotions and reason is extremely enlightening. The relationship between emotions and law has been studied by a large range of scholars from different legal movements and with diverse objectives. This chapter is based on three theoretical pillars: Aristotle’s theory of emotions as elaborated in Rhetoric and Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle’s view on the close relationship between reason, emotions and phronesis as elaborated in the Nicomachean Ethics, and a specific contemporary view: Jurisprudentialism. We assert that through a Jurisprudentialist analysis of Law as an open task and through Aristotle’s account of emotions, the challenges of legal education could (and should) be more realistically reassessed.
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Notes
- 1.
Edition used: for all texts of Aristotle: The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Jonathan Barnes.
- 2.
Zingano (2009), p. 152. Free translation of “Na verdade, este elemento não é somente uma parte da emoção: ele é seu elemento decisivo”.
- 3.
Zingano (2009), p. 152. Free translation of “O agente tem então uma opinião e a emoção é sentida conforme a esta opinião”.
- 4.
Rapp (2015), pp. 443–444.
- 5.
Fortenbaugh (1975), p. 10.
- 6.
Ibid., p. 11.
- 7.
Ibid., p. 12.
- 8.
It is important to keep in mind that the Aristotelian notion of anger is different from the contemporary notion of anger. “The Greek word that is translated by “insult” implies acts of contempt, spite or belittling; such acts manifest someone’s opinion that the affected person is worthless (…) Our anger reflects the fact that we think of ourselves as valuable persons who deserve to be treated with due respect. This is also Aristotle’s justification of anger”. Rapp (2018).
- 9.
Notwithstanding the importance of efficient cause for the definition and distinction of one emotion from another, Aristotle is not exclusively concerned with this kind of cause. His scientific purposes move him toward the identification of other causes such as the material and final cause Fortenbaugh (1975), p. 15.
- 10.
See especially, Fortenbaugh (1975).
- 11.
Berti (1997), p. 280.
- 12.
Rapp (2015), p. 444.
- 13.
Kraut (2014).
- 14.
Zingano (2009), p. 163. “Once we are the masters of each action and once our dispositions are built according to the repetition of the acts, then somehow we are responsible for our dispositions. These dispositions constitute what we can call the second practical nature of the moral agent” (free translation). “Já que somos senhores de cada ação e dado que as disposições se criam com base na repetição de atos em uma mesma direção, em certa medida somos responsáveis de nossas próprias disposições. Estas disposições constituem o que podemos chamar de uma segunda natureza prática do agente”.
- 15.
Zingano (2009), p. 163. “Aristotle sustains a strong moral responsibility thesis in regard to virtuous and vicious acts” (free translation). “Aristóteles [sustenta] uma tese forte da responsabilidade moral a respeito dos atos virtuosos e viciosos”.
- 16.
Zingano (2009), p. 164.
- 17.
“Aristotle’s interest in appropriate emotions cannot be separated from his interest in character virtues”. See Rapp (2018).
- 18.
Coelho (2012), p. 97. Free translation: “Todo o problema radica exatamente na relação entre o desejar e o pensar no momento concreto da decisão. A virtude moral é uma disposição relativa à escolha/eleição (…) logo o pensamento tem que ser correto e o desejo reto para que a proairesis seja boa. Tem que haver coincidência entre o que a razão diz e o desejo persegue para que a proairesis seja séria”.
- 19.
“Affirming that desire is persuaded by reason is different from affirming that desire is chosen by reason. If it could be chosen rationally in a deliberate way, then there would be no need for the habit as a formative practice of the desire. Desire cannot be immediately and directly determined by reason. It must be prepared, cultivated and used to obey reason”. Free translation of. “Dizer que o desejo é persuadido pela razão é bem diferente de dizer que ele é escolhido por ela. Se pudesse ser escolhido racionalmente, i.e., deliberadamente, então não haveria necessidade do hábito como uma prática formativa do desejo. Ora, o desejo não pode ser imediata e diretamente determinado pela razão, pelo o que ela dita como certo. Ele deve ser preparado, cultivado, habituado a obedecê-la”. Aggio (2010), pp. 6–7. For a detailed account on the relation between desire and pleasure in Portuguese language, see Aggio (2012).
- 20.
Coelho (2012), pp. 97–98. “The act gives the mobilization of the whole soul. The different dimensions of the soul (the rational or the irrational, each one with its different dimensions) are mobilized in the very act of the serious man particularly because only then he, while serious, constitutes his own character” (free translation). “No agir, dá-se a mobilização de toda a alma. As diferentes dimensões da alma (seja a racional, seja a irracional, cada qual também com suas diferentes dimensões) mobilizam-se no agir do homem sério até porque apenas assim é que ele, enquanto sério, constitui o seu próprio caráter”.
- 21.
- 22.
Rapp (2018).
- 23.
The most prominent ones are the differences between the very meaning of law under Greek world and the role of judges roughly pointed out in the text. We do not intend to analyse these differences but to assume them in order to reflect on legal education in the occidental world in general. In the next section we will work with a contemporary approach to adjudication called jurisprudentialism which emphasizes the element of decision in the practical realization of law. Decision, in this legal approach, is a decisive part of the process of adjudication.
- 24.
Castanheira Neves (1993), p. 31. Free translation: “O que caracteriza o juízo é a resolução de uma controvérsia prática”.
- 25.
Simioni (2014), p. 443. Free translation of: “A intencionalidade da pergunta já influencia a intencionalidade da resposta, ao mesmo tempo em que a intencionalidade da resposta já influencia a própria intencionalidade da pergunta”.
- 26.
Positive, transpositive and suprapositive principles. Castanheira Neves (1993), p. 155.
- 27.
“The problem of binding validity that the juridical thought is called to assume and to realise continually in concrete cases” (free translation). “O problema de uma validade vinculante, que o pensamento jurídico é chamado a assumir e continuamente a resolver em concreto” Castanheira Neves (2008), p. 385.
- 28.
Gaakeer (2015), p. 8.
- 29.
Ibid.
- 30.
Rapp sustains a different point of view for strong reasons. According to him, the prohairesis is always directed at things that are possible for the agent to do and that lie in the future. If the prohairesis is good, than it is the best contribution for the agent’s life as a whole. “A judge, by contrast, does not make decisions that are expected to concern her own life or her own happiness directly (…) Whereas in the decision of moral agents the non-rational part of the soul (which, on Aristotle’s account, is also responsible for the emotions) determines the goals of the virtuous conduct, there are no practical goals that the judge could realize (…) Since the judge is not herself about to undertake certain actions (apart from the formulation of the just judgement or sentence), the question of her motivation does not occur. In all these respects the situation of the judge is different from the moral agent who makes practical decisions and who is the subject of Aristotle’s formula that one should have emotions in the right way”. Rapp (2018), especially section 6.
- 31.
Iris van Domselaar states that the following judicial virtues are decisive for the moral quality in adjudication: judicial perception, judicial courage, judicial temperance, judicial justice, judicial impartiality and judicial independency. “On the basis of (my understanding of) these endoxa I propose the following judicial virtues as pertinent for our understanding of moral quality in adjudication: judicial perception, judicial courage, judicial temperance, judicial justice, judicial impartiality and judicial independency. Judges must have these virtues to a sufficient degree if adjudication is to be a morally justified practice and judicial decisions are to be right”. van Domselaar (2014), p. 234. She refers in this respect to Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Sarah Broadie and Christoffer Rowe) and to Iris Murdoch’s account of moral vision and other neo-Aristotelians. Jeanne Gaakeer states, in the same direction, that “despite their differences most legal systems share core values such as judicial impartiality, consistency and integrity which, not incidentally, are considered virtues in the Aristotelian sense”. Gaakeer (2012), p. 21.
- 32.
For another perspective on how emotions could be taken into account in law schools.
- 33.
Pryal argues that the literature, for example, is able to provide to the legal pedagogy a variety of heuristics or learning tools that can give to the different students who enter annually in law courses learning tools that could be mobilized by them, considering their individual characteristics, for the construction of legal knowledge. See Pryal (2011).
- 34.
van Domselaar (2014), pp. 244–249.
- 35.
Epistemic deference is, according to Buchanan: “the disposition to regard some other person or group of persons as especially reliable sources of truths. Social institutions that recognize some persons as experts encourage this sort of deference”. Surplus epistemic deference occurs when this deference “is misplaced, as when a person or a group is regarded as a reliable source of truths about matters on which he or it is not, or excessive, as when there is an overestimation of a person’s or group’s reliability as a source of truths”. Allen (2002), p. 136. All societies include hierarchical institutions and due to the division of labor they all recognize authorities. However, states Buchanan, “the right sort of deference to the right sorts of authorities is essential for the efficient creation, preservation, and transmission of true beliefs”. Ibid., p. 137. “Education environment is replete with (…) surplus epistemic deference (…) [because] students have to internalize a specific ideologically laden view of law as ‘true’, simply because others tell them so”. van Domselaar (2014), p. 248.
- 36.
For an interesting approach on emotional regulation for judges. See for all Maroney (2011).
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Silvestre, A.C.d.F. (2018). Rethinking Legal Education from Aristotle’s Theory of Emotions and the Contemporary Challenges of the Practical Realization of Law. In: Huppes-Cluysenaer, L., Coelho, N. (eds) Aristotle on Emotions in Law and Politics. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 121. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66703-4_12
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