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Abstract

There are two important things to remember about empathy - it is necessary, and it is impossible. Without some degree of empathy, which I define here as imagining the mutuality and difference reflected in someone else's standpoint, people could not live together. Even conservatives, who generally disdain government obligations to assist people living in poverty, tend to concede that private charity fueled by some form of empathy constitutes a moral imperative. Yet, because conservatives eschew most governmental efforts to help the poor, they typically argue that enforcing that moral imperative is a job for the next world, not for this one. By the same token, some progressives view groups as having radically different experiences, which empathy cannot penetrate. Other progressives view empathy as a "touchy-feely" distraction from the task of redistributing wealth and power in our society, or as a set of tired rhetorical formulas masquerading as transformative social vision. The progressive critique fails to acknowledge, however, that mobilizing a diverse society behind a vision of social justice requires sacrifices which only empathy can spur. Clinical legal education exists at the core of this conundrum. This Article argues that finding an ethical stance within this conundrum calls for the commitment that underlies clinical education generally: the commitment to doing. If we view empathy not as a thing but as a continuing and contingent journey, the contradiction becomes a challenge, not a source of stalemate. This Article seeks to offer some signposts along the way.

Publication Title

Clinical Law Review

Volume

5

Issue

2

First Page

605

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