by Scott Parris and Andre Golard
The appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court affords us an opportunity to look ahead to the next debate over a Supreme Court nominee. If that political debate has caught up to what neuroscience tells us today about how we make decisions, it will be a very different discussion. It will be based on the reality of how we decide.
Here’s a glimpse into what that nominating process might look like.
It will have a different starting point. Today, all nominees profess that they apply the law and do not interpret it. Simple observation shows that this does not happen. Presented with the same fact base, different justices reach different conclusions. Split decisions could not occur if there were some objective “robo-law” process at work. There isn’t. It doesn’t exist and the neuroscience of why it will never exist will be understood.
It will, startlingly, recognize that emotion is required to make a decision. Research done by Antonio D’Amasio has shown that without emotion we are unable to decide – even over the smallest issue. One of D’Amasio’s neurology patients, robbed of his brain’s emotional function, could not decide whether to use a blue or black pen to fill out a form. Without our emotional systems, we become paralyzed – we go into an endless loop of deliberation, but never reach a decision. Whether or not we are wearing a black robe, our brain requires us to know how we feel about something in order to decide.
It will recognize that empathy is inescapable. One of the recent ground-breaking discoveries in neuroscience is of mirror neurons. Our brain is chock-full of these experience-imitators.
We literally mirror what we see or imagine others experiencing.
Whatever neuroscientific term is used (e.g. “mind-reading” or “empathy”), the point is that our understanding of the world is informed by the function of these neurons. Absent their function, we do not, in fact, can not, understand the world. Mirror neurons are our brain’s connection to society. This direct, immediate and personal connection to the world is intrinsic to us and our thinking and decision-making.
No nominee or sitting justice can engage society or the law without them; that is, without empathy.
These insights will cause a fundamental change in the nomination discourse by providing it with a more neurologically literate vocabulary.
When the reality of the role of emotions and empathy in individual decision-making is recognized, it will cause sparring about judicial decision-making to become dramatically more informed.
The Founding Fathers were ahead of us in these matters. They designed a system that minimizes the impact of individual biases.
Although not versed in neuroscience, they were well-versed in the ways of human decision-making and politics.
Their wisdom created a judicial process that circumvents some of our shortcomings.
It allows all voices to be heard, and individual biases to be scrutinized. This is the best we can do with the reality of our brain. This process makes it possible for fallible, emotional, empathetic humans to reach group decisions that reflect the essence of the law. Hispanic Link.
(About the authors: Scott Parris has been CEO of several technology companies
and is the creator of One Logic, a critical thinking and communication framework. Andre Golard, PhD, studied at NYU and has held positions at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia University, Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington and the Department of Molecular Medicine at Northwest Hospital. He has published articles in peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Neurophysiology and Neuroscience.) ©2009
