Thinking and feeling like a lawyer: introducing knowledge about emotion into legal ethics education

Abstract

The first overall aim of the thesis is to demonstrate why it is important to include knowledge about emotion in legal-ethical judgment and decision-making. Chapter two explains what emotions are, demonstrates how emotions involve judgment and evaluation, and how emotions are connected to moral and ethical judgment. It is argued that the ability to account for both the positive and negative influences of emotion leads to better ethical judgment. Chapter three demonstrates how emotion is involved in ‘thinking like a lawyer’. The knowledge about emotion from Chapter two is used to expand the understanding of how emotion is involved in ‘thinking like a lawyer’ and legal-ethical judgment. It is argued that including the emotional aspects of legal-ethical judgment, will make legal ethics education more comprehensive and better equip law students for the reality of making ethical judgments in practice. The second overall aim of the thesis is to demonstrate how knowledge about emotion could be introduced into legal ethics education. This aim is achieved in Chapters four and five through the case study of the legal ethics curriculum at the Law Faculty, University of Technology Sydney. Chapter four argues that educating students about the role of emotion in legal-ethical judgment is best implemented via the pervasive and incremental approaches. Chapter five argues that by using concrete examples of how emotion is involved in legal-ethical judgment and how emotion can be integrated into teaching and learning strategies, this thesis will provide academics with a framework from which they can formulate their own teaching and learning strategies with a view to achieving learning outcomes for students such as: increased awareness and understanding of their own emotional capabilities and the ability to critically reflect on and analyse the role of emotion in ethical judgment.