Empathy and violence

Excerpt

Empathy is a central concept in healthcare ethics. It is commonly regarded as the necessary basis for good healthcare. Quality care cannot be provided if providers lack empathy. They may deliver excellent and top-notch technical assistance or interventions but without attention to the person who is attended to, something essential is missing. Since its foundation this journal has published several articles on empathy examining its moral, conceptual and social dimensions, for example, Gelhaus (2012), Pedersen (2008) and Svenaeus (2014). However, empathy is not merely crucial in specific activities such as healthcare, nursing and humanitarian assistance. It is essential for humanity as such. The capacity to understand the feelings and experiences of other persons is what makes human beings human. If we encounter a person who is suffering we can identify with and feel his or her suffering. We recognize common humanity and share vulnerability. It is also argued that empathy has been the origin of the human rights movement. The recognition in popular literature that some human beings have miserable lives or are violated and abused, stimulated feelings of sympathy in fellow human beings, and thus appealed to empathy motivating to action to enhance their situation (Hunt 2007). …