The (violent) desire for justice. The pain that doesn't make you lose your mind

Is there a place for emotions in justice, which both ancient and modern think of as a figure of impassivity (Valère-Maxime, Faits et dits mémorables, 6.5pr)? Feelings often manifest themselves in parties overwhelmed by their passions, sometimes by their pain. But judges also feel emotions. Ancient rhetoric is aware of this and makes use of it (Tacitus, Dialogue des orateurs, 31). Judicial pleadings are the place where the man who knows the human heart "holds the reins of the mind" of his public. But the pure appeal to feelings is distinguished from a more reasoned appeal to fairness, in order to move through the values of society. In this way, the appeal to emotion comes closer to law itself. To understand this double movement, the lecture turns to a declamation by Quintilian (Petite déclamation, 270), which deals with a complex drama: the rape of a girl, who takes her own life, and whosetwin takes her place to demand the execution of the rapist. The fact that they are twins triggers controversy through the victim's doubling and her presence beyond death. Above all, this rhetorical exercise, as moving as it is convoluted, enables us to understand several dimensions of equity:aequitas as a relationship of correspondence,aequitas as the expression of a vision of man in society and thus the outline of a social anthropology, andaequitas as an interpretative perspective legitimizing the search for the spirit of the law rather than respect for words. In this way, the law demonstrates its ability to absorb emotions and transform them into reason, and thus to remain more or less in tune with society. Fairness sometimes serves a (violent) desire for justice.