The Role of Empathy in Understanding and Realizing the Principles of Desirable Criminal Justice

Criminal justice pertains to some standards and criteria for realizing justice in the process of an encounter with crimes. The realization of desirable criminal justice rests on the commitment to such principles as maintaining human dignity, reforming criminals, repairing victims’ material and immaterial damages, and finally citizens’ participation in the criminal procedures by means of which broken human relations would be repaired and reestablished. It is, among other things, conformity to moral norms that realizes such principles. Explaining the features of desirable criminal justice, I examine the nature and role of empathy as an important moral skill and character trait where empathy is a necessary condition for the realization of and commitment to these universal principles. I also show how empathy can, through a cognitive and affective close connection to the position of those involved in crimes, prepare the ground for considering others’ needs in criminal cases by leading one to avoid egoism and self-centeredness as the main obstacle to the realization of these principles. By virtue of empathy it would be accessible to uphold the principles of desirable criminal justice and to facilitate the following: compensating for the material and immaterial damages to individuals, making the criminal aware of these damages, dissuading him from doing similar things, and making social adjustment.