15 October 2010 - Reversed on Appeal: The Uncertain Future of President Obama’s “Empathy Standard”

It was not the first time the President had used the word “empathy” to describe his views on constitutional interpretation and the complicated work of a judge. It may, however, have been the last.

To the Right, empathy was nothing less than a code word for judicial activism, a dog whistle to the Democratic base that the President would choose judges who would put the counsel of a bleeding heart above the demands of impartial justice. To the Left, a scholastic debate over the merits of empathy was not very inviting, particularly if winning minor points might come at the expense of the President’s first nominee. Seeing Sonia Sotomayor safely to the Court was far more important than arguing over how she, or any other Justice for that matter, should make her decisions on the bench.

03/22/11 - Obama's Empathy for the Supreme Court
I have said that this misconstrues what the President has said about the role empathy might play on the bench. The "empathy standard," as Republicans have portrayed it, is one that a judge might use to trump the clear letter of the law or to provide support to the weaker argument in a case where the less sympathetic party has the legal upper hand. (Phelps is one such a case, which is why Alito's dissent is so striking.) In contrast, the President has said that empathy may play the role of tie-breaker, not case-breaker, when what the law demands is inconsistent or fundamentally unclear. A 5-4 decision tends to be indicative of such a case. 8-1 is not.

March 16, 2011 - Sam Alito: Setting the "Empathy Standard" for the Supreme Court

For almost two years now, Republicans have issued dire warnings about an urgent threat to the Constitution emanating from the Supreme Court. What is this menace? A Justice's capacity for empathy, what Senator Lindsay Graham has called the "absurd, dangerous standard" by which President Obama has promised to evaluate Supreme Court nominees. Such warnings have generally struck Democrats as politically convenient and intellectually preposterous, but in light of the recent ruling in the Phelps case, they might want to reconsider. We have seen the face of empathy on the Supreme Court, and his name is Sam Alito

Here are some questions we can explore during the interview.
 

(   )  How can we build a culture of empathy?
i.e. raise the level of empathy in society?

Value?
What's your most important personal value?

How did you develop it?

Do you have a story of when you learned an insight into it?

Defining empathy

(   ) What is your metaphor of what empathy is like? Explain?
(   ) What is a physical metaphor. (make a body movement)

(   ) What does that feel like in your body?
 

(   ) What is your metaphor of what the opposite of empathy is like? Explain?

(   ) What does that feel like in your body?
 

(   ) What would a culture of empathy look like?

(   ) What's the metaphor for  a culture of empathy?

Empathy Story

(   ) "When did you first discover the power of empathy?"

(   ) Create a dialog between the two.

(   )  How can we build a culture of empathy?

(   ) What are the obstacles to deepening empathy?

(   ) How to overcome the obstacle?


(   )  Are there questions that you would like me to ask you