How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain

by Lisa Feldman Barrett

When DNA evidence is unavailable or irrelevant, perhaps trials might dispense with a jury and instead feature the collective wisdom of multiple judges working together, randomly drawn from a larger pool of judges. As I’ve said already, I’m not a legal scholar, just a scientist, so perhaps wiser legal minds can construct a balanced judicial panel system in better ways. A panel of skilled judges who are trained to be self-aware and emotionally granular might avoid affective realism more effectively than a jury would. It’s not a perfect solution by any means: in the United States at least, judges tend to be on the older side, predominantly European American, and may overrepresent a particular set of beliefs while maintaining the illusion that they are free of them. Judges are also more likely to hand out maximum sentences. But one thing is certain: every day in America, thousands of people appear before a jury of their peers and hope they will be judged fairly, when in reality they are judged by human brains that always perceive the world from a self-interested point of view. To believe otherwise is a fiction that is not supported by the architecture of the brain.72