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Neuroethics
Published in: Neuroethics 2/2018

Open Access 01-07-2018 | Original Paper

The Moral Importance of Reflective Empathy

Authors: Ingmar Persson, Julian Savulescu

Published in: Neuroethics | Issue 2/2018

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Abstract

This is a reply to Jesse Prinz and Paul Bloom’s skepticism about the moral importance of empathy. It concedes that empathy is spontaneously biased to individuals who are spatio-temporally close, as well as discriminatory in other ways, and incapable of accommodating large numbers of individuals. But it is argued that we could partly correct these shortcomings of empathy by a guidance of reason because empathy for others consists in imagining what they feel, and, importantly, such acts of imagination can be voluntary – and, thus, under the influence of reflection – as well as automatic. Since empathizing with others motivates concern for their welfare, a reflectively justified empathy will lead to a likewise justified altruistic concern. In addition, we argue that such concern supports another central moral attitude, namely a sense of justice or fairness.
Footnotes
1
Concurring with Adam Smith that, in contrast to ‘pity’ and ‘compassion’, ‘sympathy’ may ‘without much impropriety, be made use of to denote our fellow-feeling with any passion whatever’ p765 [4], we have earlier employed the term ‘sympathetic concern’ (e.g. p109 [5]).
 
2
Cf. Coplan’s distinction between self-oriented and other-oriented perspective-taking pp9–15 [6].
 
3
Thus, empathizing is not imagining having any experience, as Bloom’s claim that it is ‘experiencing what they experience’ p3 [1] could suggest. If, say, we imagine seeing what others are seeing from their points of view, this does not qualify as empathy because it is not any feeling that is imagined. Additionally, it is odd to talk about empathizing with somebody who is feeling warm or surprised when these feelings are neither positive nor negative.
 
4
Experimental evidence for this hypothesis is summarized e.g. in Batson [7].
 
5
This is a reason why it is important not to confuse empathy with emotional contagion: we cannot directly infect ourselves with emotions at will.
 
6
Prinz claims: ‘Imagination sounds like a kind of mental act that requires effort on the part of the imaginer’ p212 [2]. But, as for instance Hume stressed, if we have regularly experienced one type of event being succeeded by another type of event, experiencing the first is likely to make us automatically imagine experiencing the other, especially if it is pleasant or unpleasant.
 
7
Here surfaces a difference between concern, on the one hand, and sympathy, pity and compassion, on the other, for although we might say that your act expressed concern for the well-being of the pedestrian, we would scarcely say that you felt sympathy, pity or compassion for the pedestrian. These emotions do seem to involve empathy on each and every occasion.
 
8
For a survey of the ancient Buddhist tradition of cultivating empathy, see McRae [8]. In this tradition, ‘empathy as imaginative projection’ ‘is assumed to be highly trainable’, ‘vastly under-utilitized’ p124 [8], and also that it ‘will stimulate compassion’ p125 [8]. That is to say, virtually what we argue.
 
9
Followers of Hume and Smith, like e.g. Kaupinnen [9], who believe that empathy is involved in moral judgment also contend that it can be regulated, but their view is different, and more contentious, than ours in at least two respects. First, we explore the role of empathy in one species of moral motivation, not its role in the making of moral judgments, let alone all kinds of moral judgments. In addition, Kaupinnen thinks that for his purpose empathy as regards reactive attitudes like resentment and gratitude is more central than empathy as regards concern for the well-being of others. Secondly, these theorists propose regulation by reference to an ideal perspective, which goes beyond the regulation we have here considered.
 
10
Many thanks to the reviewers and editor for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.
 
Literature
1.
Bloom, Paul. 2016. Against empathy. London: Bodley Head.
2.
Prinz, Jesse. 2011. Is empathy necessary for morality? In Empathy, ed. Amy Coplan and Peter Goldie, 211–229. Oxford: Oxford U. P.
3.
Prinz, Jesse. 2011. ‘Against Empathy’, Southern Journal of Philosophy, 49, Spindel Suppl., 214–33.
4.
Smith, Adam. 1790. The theory of moral sentiments. In British moralists 1650–1800, II, ed. D. D. Raphael, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.
5.
Persson, Ingmar, and Julian Savulescu. 2012. Unfit for the future. Oxford: Oxford U. P.CrossRef
6.
Coplan, Amy. 2011. Understanding empathy: Its features and effect. In Empathy, ed. Amy Coplan and Peter Goldie, 3–18. Oxford: Oxford U. P.
7.
Batson, C. Daniel. 2012. The empathy-altruism hypothesis: Issues and implications. In Empathy: From bench to bedside, ed. Jean Decety, 41–54. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
8.
McRae, Emily. 2017. Empathy, compassion, and “exchanging self and other” in indo-Tibetan Buddhism. In The Routledge handbook of the philosophy of empathy, ed. Heidi Maibom, 123–133. London & New York: Routledge.
9.
Kaupinnen, Antti. 2014. Empathy, emotion regulation, and moral judgment. In Empathy & Morality, ed. Heidi Maibom, 97–121. Oxford: Oxford U. P.CrossRef
Metadata
Title
The Moral Importance of Reflective Empathy
Authors
Ingmar Persson
Julian Savulescu
Publication date
01-07-2018
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Neuroethics / Issue 2/2018
Print ISSN: 1874-5490
Electronic ISSN: 1874-5504
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-017-9350-7

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