Seattle University Collaborative Projects - International Academy of ...

Against the Yuck FactorDaniel R. Kelly, Purdue University (drkelly@purdue.edu)The view I will defend here is that in virtue of its nature, disgust is not fit to do any moral orsocial work whatsoever, and that there are no defensible uses for disgust in legal or politicalinstitutions. I will first articulate my theory of the nature of disgust. Turning from descriptive tonormative issues, I will distinguish a number of separate roles that advocates of disgust haveargued the emotion can and should be used to fill. I will then consider the best arguments infavor of granting disgust the power to justify certain judgments, and to serve as a social tool,respectively. These are provided by Daniel Kahan, who advances a pair of theses that suggestdisgust is indispensible, and so has an important part to play in the functioning of a just, wellorderedsociety. After describing each thesis and showing where it fits with respect to thetaxonomy of possible roles disgust might be granted, I will examine the arguments in support ofthem and show where I think they fail.Evidence Law's Ambivalent Attitude towards Emotion: When is Too MuchEmotionally-Charged Evidence Unfair Prejudice? When is Too Little EmotionIncompetent Lawyering?Aviva Orenstein, Indiana University (aorenste@indiana.edu)Federal Rule 403 of the Rules of Evidence allows trial judges to exclude evidence where unfairprejudice substantially outweighs the probative values of a piece of evidence. The advisory notesto the rules explain that appeal to emotion rather than logic is a form of unfair prejudice. Yet, somuch of trial practice and good jury argument is emotionally based. The power of an emotionalnarrative not only organizes the evidence for the jury, but gives them a reason to care. A sterilestory without color risks boring or alienating the jury. Too much gory detail can be unfairlyprejudicial. This presentation will discuss the power of emotion in trial practice theory andtechnique and observe the deep ambivalence evidence law has in dealing with courtroomemotion.Visualizing the “Monstrous Brain”: The Rhetorical Implications of Brain Scansin Sex Offender TrialsPamela D. Schultz, Alfred University (fschultz@alfred.edu)Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which detects regional increases in blood flowthat accompany neural activity, has become a powerful tool to investigate the brain’s cognitive238