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Comment by logfromblammo | Hacker News Reader

That pushes the burden of having empathy for anyone onto the legislature writing the laws. And they decide for all cases, independent of potentially mitigating factors.

As I personally believe that a legislature is a juicy target for sociopaths seeking power and impunity, and therefore likely to demonstrate less empathy than the general population, I'd rather leave the cold rationality for writing the laws, and the empathy for interpreting them in a just manner.

Practice rationality in determining the facts of the case. Practice empathy in deciding whether to convict or acquit, and in the sentencing for the convicted.

Cold rationality is how Jean Valjean gets 20 years in the galleys for stealing bread.

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> And they decide for all cases, independent of potentially mitigating factors.

That's why most laws have a wide band of potential punishments.

> I'd rather leave the cold rationality for writing the laws, and the empathy for interpreting them in a just manner.

It's typically a single person -- the judge -- who will select the punishment from the band of permissible punishments. So now we're taking a theoretical group decision made across a wide swath of society, and laying it down on a single person... This is already done to a large extent, except that the judge has minimum and maximum punishments to work between.

> Practice empathy in deciding whether to convict or acquit...

This has huge implications on rule-of-law. I'll just link to another thread where I argued against a very similar viewpoint:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11503910#11504703

> There's a myriad of reasons why this is a bad thing for society. For example, white supremacy groups not being arrested or charged with crimes because all the cops and DAs and judges are also white supremacists. If it's truly within their world-view that a lynching is not wrong, then according to your theory it's their responsibility to not arrest or charge for it. This viewpoint is directly opposed to the rule of law.

(I removed the first sentence from my quote, since I was properly corrected on it down-thread.)

>That pushes the burden of having empathy for anyone onto the legislature writing the laws. And they decide for all cases, independent of potentially mitigating factors.

The legislature is supposed to be burdened with this. Empathy for the people living with us is the reason why we all left the wild and came together in the first place.

> Practice rationality in determining the facts of the case. Practice empathy in deciding whether to convict or acquit, and in the sentencing for the convicted.

I think I disagree. Once we've come to the facts of the case, with the proper (empathetic) laws, it just becomes a matter of execution (no pun intended).

>Cold rationality is how Jean Valjean gets 20 years in the galleys for stealing bread.

Don't think what you're saying is falling on deaf ears. I definitely get it. I'm a black man in the US. I know what strict mandatory minimums and culturally deaf laws do to people. However, I think that if we fix the laws, the rest shakes out.

  Empathy for the people living with us is the reason why we all left the wild

Archaeological records indicate empathy amongst neanderthals [1]. It's been with us a while.

[1] http://www.evoanth.net/2012/04/26/caring-neanderthals/

I hope you understand that's what I meant. We're not just running around as individuals, we formed groups and society because of empathy. Neanderthals weren't loners.

I totally agree here. The whole point of having a jury picked from society is to ensure that the justice process passed some kind of "rrasonable person"test. American legislators and prosecutors are resembling cold blooded sociopaths each passing decade passing laws that destroy families and lives and stealing money from ordinary citizens (civil forfeiture). In such scenario I think Jury's role is very important.

Given that USA jails a hell lot of people (per capita) compared to any developed nation and large number of them are about drug offenses or victimless crimes I would rather have a linient jurors than harsh ones.

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