by BayNVC Co-Founder Miki Kashtan

President Obama ignited controversy when he named empathy as a necessary quality in a Supreme Court judge. Wendy Long, legal counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network and former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, said, “Lady Justice doesn’t have empathy for anyone. She rules strictly based upon the law and that’s really the only way that our system can function properly under the Constitution.” Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) referred to empathy as “touchy-feely stuff.” Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) asked Sonia Sotomayor during the hearings, “Have you always been able to have a legal basis for decisions you have rendered and not rely on extralegal concepts such as empathy?”

Long, Graham, and Kyl understand empathy as an uprising of emotion that is irrelevant – even harmful – to sound reasoning and the application of justice. I see empathy as the capacity to understand the world from another’s perspective, part of what Daniel Goleman refers to as emotional intelligence. Empathic reasoning recognizes that others are human like us, thereby shedding light on the facts and making sound judgment more likely.

The concern about empathy reflects a long tradition of valuing rationality, and the Enlightenment’s imperative to overcome instincts, passions, and emotions through exercising reason. This exclusive focus on reason applies across the board: to moral theory, to the law, to professional conduct, and to our assessment of our own choices and decisions.

But is it true that we make better decisions without emotions? Antonio Damasio, in Descartes’ Error, provides a startling answer. Damasio examined the rare people who have lost their prefrontal lobes and the capacity to have emotions. While usually capable of impeccable and intelligent reasoning, such people are unable to make any decisions. Without the capacity to feel, to be guided by their emotions, these individuals become entirely dependent on the kindness of their families for navigating even the simplest daily choices. We can reason our way to most decisions, but without our emotions we lose the moral and practical compass for making sound ones.

Perhaps the goal is not so much overcoming emotions, but determining which emotions can support us in making sound decisions and in living a decent, moral human life. If so, then empathy would be a clear candidate. Let’s look, for example, at the role of empathy in sustaining or preventing violence.

Within the modern worldview, violence is seen as a failure to curb passions and act rationally. My own studies, however, bring me to see violence more as a failure to experience empathy. Modern rationality, with its efficiency and impersonalism, creates conditions that make it more likely for people to ignore empathy, and has thus made possible violence on a previously unknown scale. Indeed, a brief exploration of an admittedly extreme example – mass violence in Nazi Germany – can provide some insight into the significance of empathy.

In Modernity and the Holocaust, Zygmunt Bauman describes the Holocaust as a uniquely modern phenomenon rather than an eruption of irrational forces. He writes: “Mass destruction was accompanied not by the uproar of emotions, but the dead silence of unconcern.” “The Holocaust did not just, mysteriously, avoid clash with the social norms and institutions of modernity. It was these norms and institutions that made the Holocaust feasible.” Essentially, when people focus more on doing a good job and following orders than on the impact of their actions, their innate capacity for empathy ceases to function as a moral compass that guides moral action.

We don’t need to focus on extreme cases to recognize the essential role of empathy in our society. Empathy is necessary not only for Supreme Court Justices; it is vital for members of Congress, teachers, doctors, police officers, business owners, workers, parents, and children. It is the lifeblood of a vibrant democratic society. Undoubtedly the founders of this country could not have written the document our Supreme Court is entrusted with interpreting without a healthy dose of it themselves.

The gift of empathy is that it integrates mind and heart in the very same act as it brings together self and other. When we ignore care and empathy, we pay an enormous price in the form of depression, apathy, victimization, and anger on an individual level, and crime, neglect, alienation, bullying, even war, on a societal level. When we cultivate care and empathy, not only does our emotional health improve, but also our vision, hope for the future, and the capacity, both individually and collectively, to act as moral agents in addressing the enormous challenges facing us today.

About Miki Kashtan

Miki Kashtan, certified NVC trainer, is co-founder of Bay Area Nonviolent Communication and the North America Leadership Program. Miki conducts organizational trainings, consults with private and public sector organizations, leads practice groups, and teaches NVC at workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area and around the country. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from University of California at Berkeley.

Miki is inspired by the contribution that NVC can make to social change movements and values sharing these skills with leaders and activists. She also particularly enjoys working with and coaching people interested in learning to teach NVC.

Miki is available to lead NVC trainings and can be reached at Bay Area Nonviolent Communication: (http://www.baynvc.org) and the North America Leadership Program (http://lp.learnnvc.com/)