Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.6, 2017

 

Judicial Impartiality and Empathetic Justice

(Abstract)

 

Du Yanlin

 

The increasingly diversity of society’s demands means that the impartial operation of justice is faced with a rather complex predicament. Empathetic justice can maximize the justice of verdicts in individual cases and can also handle the universality of the pursuit of justice appropriately; its demonstration of prosocial public reason offers a way out of this dilemma. Not only is empathetic justice a diverse and dynamic form of justice; it also provides a relatively satisfactory interpretation of the equivalence and convertibility of justice. As well as showing interaction and sensitive resonance of intersubjetivity, it is a vehicle for rich virtues of justice. Although empathetic justice originates in the mind or in emotional experience, it can withstand the scientific legal tests. At the same time, it remains imperfect, and certain defects in its operational mechanism may produce some adverse factors.