[T]he only real question before the court was whether New Haven had reason to believe that if the city used the test results it would be sued under Title VII.

So why does Title 7 have priority over the statute they were sued over?

They don't just want to have empathy for fetuses, they want to equate a single fertilized egg with a "baby."

Funny, now that Sotomayor has been selected, the complaint is she doesn't have empathy - isn't able to understand the needs of anyone except Hispanics and women.

If Republicans don't want empathy in courtrooms, then surely they will support eliminating those theatrical "victim impact statements" from criminal trials.

They want judges to have sympathy for conservative plaintiffs, not empathy. They simply don't understand the difference.

Danp - because Ricci claimed the city violated.... Title 7.

Technically, it isn't possible to empathize with the unborn. It is this conflating empathy and sympathy which is at the heart of this idiocy.

I have followed [Clarence Thomas'] career for some time, and he has excelled in everything that he has attempted. He is a delightful and warm, intelligent person, who has great empathy and a wonderful sense of humor. He's also a fiercely independent thinker with an excellent legal mind who believes passionately in equal opportunity for all Americans. He will approach the cases that come before the Court with a commitment to deciding them fairly, as the facts and the law require.

- George H. W. Bush

Can't wait until this devolves into a debate over how to pronounce Ricci's name.

I have never heard a conservative complain when judges give special consideration to children from "stable" (i.e. rich and white) families. Conservatives don't say a word when the defense lawyers ask judges to consider the impact that a jail sentence, or even trial as an adult, would have on these children's futures.

It's very simple: A judge with an ounce of empathy couldn't undertake the legal contortions needed to find for the defendant in the case involving a 13-year-old girl strip searched for no good reason at all -- and found to be innocent of any wrongdoing.

A judge with an ounce of empathy also would have found adopting such a tendentious reading of the law in Ledbetter highly distasteful.

In short, empathy makes it less likely the SCOTUS will rule for the powerful, wealthy and well-connected. As such, it's clearly anathema to so-called conservative legal thought.

Solomon himself might reappear on earth and be nominated by Obama, and the GOP would still howl. They are the party of Rule or Ruin. Elections have no repercussions on their tactics, strategies, or aspirations.

I find Repubs' recent yammering about empathy rather amusing. For years, many of us have speculated that the inability to empathize was responsible for their often closed-minded behavior. Now, as if to confirm our theories...

Anyway, good post, SB.

Straw people? The right will clearly oppose anything or anyone Obama puts forth. It is their modus vivendi until they get back in power.

As for the Supreme Court; the myth of the impartial court is being played by the right as if it were true. Once again they have succeeded in framing the issue their way, and the left is responding to that frame instead of creating an alternative.

I don't think simply pointing out that judges have perspectives through which they "find" the law will work. It is too much of a "they do it too" argument. But I am at a loss on how to get that point across.

By the way, I still find it incomprehensible that even someone as smart as, for example, Justice Scalia, believes that his perspective does not color his decisions.

I thought it was quite obvious that they do not know or care to explain the dictionary definitions of "empathy" and "sympathy." They believe they are the same thing. It's not surprising, a lot of people do, but it shows either a sad lack of understanding from supposed leaders of the movement or a deliberate misinterpretation of the definitions to mislead their followers. I presume it's the latter.

The entire basis of American government is the concept of benevolence as described by 18th century philosopher Francis Hutcheson, which is pretty exactly the same thing we mean by 'empathy'.

from,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scottish-18th/

"Hutcheson reacted against both the psychological egoism of Thomas Hobbes and the rationalism of Samuel Clarke and William Wollaston. As regards Hobbes, Hutcheson thought his doctrine was both wrong and dangerous; wrong because by the frame of our nature we have compassionate, generous and benevolent affections which owe nothing at all to calculations of self-interest, and dangerous because people may be discouraged from the morally worthy exercise of cultivating generous affections in themselves on the grounds that the exercise of such affections is really an exercise in dissimulation or pretence. As against Hobbes Hutcheson held that a morally good act is one motivated by benevolence, a desire for the happiness of others. Indeed the wider the scope of the act the better, morally speaking, the act is; Hutcheson was the first to speak of 'the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers'."

People who are opposed to empathy are opposed to the United States itself.

Read all about it in Garry Wills' Inventing America.

Please, why can't journalists and bloggers get this simple linguistic fact correct: the word is "empathic", not "empathetic". Yes, I know we have "sympathy" and "sympathetic", but it doesn't work the same way.

I personally like the conservative judges' empathy for corporate profits over people injured by a corporations actions (or failures to act).

Limiting punitive damages? How does THAT apply the law rather than making law, huh?

Oh, and donbux? Words mean what most people THINK they mean. That's language for you.

Outstanding post, Steve!!

Empathy certainly translates to "activist" in the judicial context of conservative(ahem)..thinking. Republic party wingnuts only want activist (or empahetic)judges making decisions they like, calling it "rigidly enforcing the constitution and the rule of law", as they see it.

Hypocrites, the lot of them.

Empathy is the ability to feel what others feel. Someone who possesses the ability to feel empathy cannot turn it on and off for political gain. It's on for everyone, all the time. Then they employ their intellect, and the law, to use it properly. Anyone who cannot feel empathy is seriously mentally ill. Nothing to brag about. This accusation should be just laughed at.