Corporate lawyers have feelings too, more than they acknowledge

In his recent book, Amartya Sen refuses to elevate rationality above feelings. In fact, “reason and emotion play complementary roles in human reflection”(at 39), he observes, and later he reiterates the point. “Indeed, in celebrating reason, there is no particular grounds for denying the far-reaching role of instinctive psychology and spontaneous responses” (at 49).

While corporate lawyers pride themselves on their perspicuity and celebrate their cerebration, they teem with emotions, bubble up or boil, struggle with passions. The degree to which we reach conclusions through logic or through visceral, pre-conscious emotions is an open question.

This cool, calm and collected blawg rarely dips into the volcanic world of law department emotions, but it would enrage me for readers to think me gormless (See my post of July 31, 2005: emotional awareness and analytic ability; Oct. 1, 2005: Johari windows open up emotions; Aug. 28, 2006: DeBono and Red Hat thinking; Nov. 22, 2007: sad moods but good thinking; Dec. 3, 2007 #3: monitor your feelings before you decide; June 22, 2008: neuroscience tackles emotions; March 27, 2009: pattern recognition and emotional tagging; and Nov. 10, 2009: bracelets for emotional insights.).