Abstract

Is emotion a judicial vice or a judicial virtue? While Western post-Enlightenment norms insist on the former, contemporary psychology suggests the latter—or perhaps it suggests that either could be true. This view is illuminated and given texture by the Aristotelian tradition. This chapter explores historical, philosophical and scientific perspectives that converge around the view that emotion is a vital source of judicial wisdom. At the same time, judicial emotion can sometimes operate as a vice. The chapter situates this more nuanced position on judicial emotion within the broader frame of law and emotion studies, demonstrates how most scholars within that movement either explicitly or implicitly adopt an Aristotelian philosophy, and uses the case of anger to demonstrate the value of an Aristotelian virtue approach to the emotional element of judicial behavior and decision-making.