Lack of Empathy and Dehumanisation Ask a person (at least, a person of Western origin, who are th... more Lack of Empathy and Dehumanisation Ask a person (at least, a person of Western origin, who are the people with whom, as a European, I am most acquainted) to tell you what was the darkest period of human history and they will usually answer either the 'Middle Ages' or the period of the great twentieth-century totalitarianisms, especially the time of the Naziregime in Europe and Communism under Stalin in Russia. Alternatively, and more precisely, ask an individual what was the period when humanity really hit bottom and showed its cruellest face, and they will in all probability think of National-Socialism in Germany and the tragedy of the Holocaust. It is, therefore, not surprising that Arne Johan Vetlesen takes this example as emblematic to discuss the processes of dehumanisation, and since this is a theme that has also emerged in this book, it is seemingly appropriate if we take it as the fil rouge linking lack of empathy with dehumanisation and amorality. Recall our discussion about Eichmann: there we said that Eichmann was guilty of dehumanising his victims, whom he did not regard as human beings, but as mere 'numbers'. However, there is a dehumanising process that Eichmann carried out earlier than that applied to his victims and it is the one he practiced on himself, letting himself be treated as an instrument by his superiors, as means, and not as end in himself. Vetlesen calls this process one of double dehumanisation. 1 I will argue in what follows 1
The account given by Prinz about moral education is, briefly, the following: 1 a child develops m... more The account given by Prinz about moral education is, briefly, the following: 1 a child develops moral competence thanks to imitation; in particular, the child has to be able to react with negative emotions in the presence of negative states of affairs, for example, the suffering or distress of another subject or the disapproval of caregivers and, conversely, to react with positive emotions in the presence of positive states of affairs. Now, it is understandable that to be able to react with positive or negative feelings in certain contexts it cannot suffice to possess a mere disposition to feel basic emotions, like joy, sadness, disgust, or fear; the child also needs the ability to discern other's feelings and emotions. Here is where imitation plays its part: these emotional dispositions are, in fact, established by imitation and emotional contagion. Children learn to mimic perceived emotions through vocalisations, facial expressions, and gestures, for example, and then eventually come to feel, by means of imitation and especially emotional contagion, the inner states of others. Growing up, they will learn that, in response to given emotions experienced thanks to emotional contagion, certain reactions are in order. Thus, for instance, the sadness they feel thanks to emotional contagion from someone who is suffering will elicit a consolatory response learnt via imitation. Within this scope, Prinz sees the failure of psychopaths (besides their incapacity to be moved by fear, admiration, and other emotions) in their inability to become 'infected' by the feelings of others and to respond accordingly.
What I call 'anti-empathism', that is, the tendency by scholars dealing with empathy to criticise... more What I call 'anti-empathism', that is, the tendency by scholars dealing with empathy to criticise this phenomenon either at the ontological and epistemological level (by contesting that it is really possible to feel what another feels) 1 or at the ethical/moral level (by questioning the role it is supposed to play in the moral sphere or as the founding element of an ethics), 2 is very recent and, for this reason, it cannot yet count on many supporters. Nonetheless, as usually happens with young movements advancing a provocative thesis, the number of academics advocating this view is rapidly rising. In what follows, I will analyse the perspective on empathy of the most representative among the 'ethical' anti-empathists, namely, Jesse Prinz and Paul Bloom (a perspective which is very often complementary, when not overlapping), and then criticise it in order to make room for an alternative point of view on the matter. My intention is to reject most of the criticisms made of empathy by Prinz and Bloom whilst at the same time distancing myself from empathy-enthusiasts (whom I shall label 'pro-empathists'). As I have said more than once, my intention is to present a third alternative way of thinking about the moral dimension of empathy, which, although perhaps less provocative, and for this reason also less glamorous than the
In the last chapter I reviewed all the most important and striking criticisms proffered against e... more In the last chapter I reviewed all the most important and striking criticisms proffered against empathy. What should be clear by now is that no matter what many politicians, psychologists, neuroscientists, ethologists, economists, or even our own common sense may say, empathy has limits and shortcomings, as well as biases. Empathy is fallible, manipulatable, and inaccurate. For some scholars, this makes it not only unsuitable for morality, but deleterious for it: empathy is not necessary and not sufficient for morality at best and dangerously noxious at worst. What will now follow is in some sense a defence of empathy. It is not a defence tout court, an unconditional support for the case of empathy and an attack on all contrary theses. I will not proceed with the confutation of all criticisms cited against empathy. Empathy undoubtedly has its limits and it is not always a secure guide for acting morally, but it has, nonetheless, a central role to play for morality. The structure of the following sections will, for the most part, mirror the one employed in the previous one, when discussing the critiques of Jesse Prinz. In other words, the main framework will be constituted by the analysis of the role of empathy in, respectively, moral judgement, moral development/education, and moral motivation/conduct. The boundaries will, nevertheless, not always be so rigid, as the issues at hand are fairly interrelated, hence, cross-references will be in order. Now, as previously mentioned, the question to ask is: what is the role played by empathy in moral judgement?
A Brief Historical Reconstruction Few concepts have received the same immense amount of attention... more A Brief Historical Reconstruction Few concepts have received the same immense amount of attention as that obtained by empathy in the last four or five decades. Empathy was literally everywhere to be found: in the popular press, 1 in the mouth of worldleaders, 2 and of course in the research on different topics and disciplines such as psychopathy, 3 autism spectrum disorders, 4 medical care, 5 ethics
The way Battaly construes her argument against empathy is rather complex, but I will try to summa... more The way Battaly construes her argument against empathy is rather complex, but I will try to summarise it in a way that is clear and hopefully faithful to the author's intentions: if empathy is a virtue, then it must be intentional or at least have some voluntary component. In fact, as Aristotle had rightfully noticed in the Nicomachean Ethics, we praise or blame people depending on their virtuous or vicious behaviour, and we do that because we hold them responsible for their actions. Of course, one can only be responsible for something that one has control over. Ergo, virtues are traits of character that we must have control over. For this reason, all the concepts of empathy which describe it as a fundamentally automatic and involuntary phenomenon must be ruled out, for they cannot, by definition, regard empathy as a virtue. Necessarily, the only notion of empathy remaining, the one which conceives it as a phenomenon in some way controllable, is that of empathy as perspective-taking. However, the situation is not that simple. It might, in fact, be that perspective-taking is not a virtue, but a skill. Battaly resorts once again to Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics to illustrate the analogies and the differences between the two concepts. A skill can be defined as 'an acquired ability to reliably attain a particular end'. 1 In fact, we are not born with skills, we have to train and develop them, and once we have developed them well enough, skills grant us special abilities to attain various ends: to 1 Battaly (2011, p. 290).
As I said in the previous footnote, it is not my intention to defend a straightforward care-ethic... more As I said in the previous footnote, it is not my intention to defend a straightforward care-ethicist approach to morality, however, I think that care ethicists have contributed to the emergence and the consequent examination of some facets of morality that have been disregarded for far too long in the sphere of moral philosophy. One example is the fact that traditional ethics, such as deontological and teleological ethics, have not taken the context of moral subjects into account. The way in which traditional moral philosophers have conceived ethical theories is almost solely compatible with the model of a socially privileged, independent, and ablebodied male, capable of making isolated transactions in the world. The problem is that this kind of experience is not shared by women and by other marginalised subjects, who have a different conception of what moral agency really means. So, whilst utilitarian and Kantian ethics attempt to answer the question 'what is the right thing to do?' irrespective of the individuals and the context, care ethics have had the distinction of highlighting the importance of responsiveness. 1 Since ethics is conceived here as relational, as dealing with subjects interacting with each other, the knowledge of what is good and bad is generated, beyond various guiding principles, by attentiveness and openness to the other. Hence, the moral concern is always addressed to the other, not to any particular action abstracted from the (relational) context. 2 1 Held (2006, p. 83). 2 Hamington (2017, p. 265).
The Way to a Definition It is not the aim of this work to offer an in-depth analysis of the philo... more The Way to a Definition It is not the aim of this work to offer an in-depth analysis of the philosophy of Lipps, but it was important to start our investigation of empathy with a brief report of his view on the matter, primarily for the reason that he was the first to talk about empathy (not sympathy) and to use this concept in a systematic way central to his own theory and, secondly, because more than hundred years after Lipps' book, there is still no agreement among the scholars both on the definition of empathy and on the precise role it can play. In other words, although Lipps' desire was to clarify the concept and use it consistently, his objective is nowadays still far from being achieved. As a matter of fact, for the young academic approaching the subject area of empathy, the landscape can be quite disorienting and distressing: empathy is a 'hot topic' nowadays, and it has managed to enter the field of inquiry of disciplines ranging from philosophy to the neurosciences, from psychology to zoology, and from anthropology to economics. Of course, given the incredible amount of work made during the years by scholars with such different backgrounds and opinions on the matter, it cannot be surprising to see how blurred the definition of empathy is. Just to give two concrete examples of the terminological, semantical, and content-affecting chaos which exists in the literature, we can take into consideration the works of Coplan (2011) and Batson (2011). In the first, the philosopher Amy Coplan defines empathy as: '[A] complex imaginative process in which an observer simulates another person's situated
Empathy and the Importance of Affectivity This last citation from Kant offers us enough food for ... more Empathy and the Importance of Affectivity This last citation from Kant offers us enough food for thought to go further than him and, indeed, to go past him. We have already said that what has moral significance goes far beyond what can be made an object of duty. Now we even have Kant's confirmation of this. However, there is more that deserves to be highlighted. The fact is that the attitudes we possess, the values we adhere to, and even the feelings we experience constitute an irreducible part of our moral self and reflect on us morally as much as the actions we perform. We have made it clear earlier on that empathy is to be considered a virtue and mention has been made of the many different forms necessary or at least useful for morality. We also stated that resorting to HLE is a choice (it does not occur automatically) and in that sense we are responsible for its development and use. Until now it has been easy to understand what is meant by saying empathy is a part of our moral self and reflects on us morally. However, what about LLE? Does the faculty to automatically perceive the thoughts and feelings of others also reflect morally on us? Is it also a part of our moral self? My claim is that it is exactly like our emotions. It would be a mistake to consider what we experience, as opposed to what we choose or initiate, as stranger to the moral landscape. It is true that with relation to the emotions (and to LLE) we are in a certain sense 'passive', because we feel we 'undergo' a certain emotion and we do not decide to have it. Nevertheless, emotions also depend largely on our beliefs and on the attitudes we come to assume, and these are elements under our control. This in turn explains why we can, for
This book has two main objectives. The first is to identify and adequately describe the phenomeno... more This book has two main objectives. The first is to identify and adequately describe the phenomenon of empathy. This essentially means offering a strong, reasoned and accurate description of the phenomenon of empathy in order to capture the essence of the empathic phenomenon and clearly distinguish it from other similar emotional phenomena such as sympathy or compassion The second part focuses on the role that this phenomenon can play on the ethical-moral level. The question is whether empathy is necessary or at least important for morality, and if so, to what extent, in what way and for what reasons. This is an open access book.
This chapter defends the view that empathy is tightly linked to the concept (and the phenomenon) ... more This chapter defends the view that empathy is tightly linked to the concept (and the phenomenon) of moral perception, which is in turn closely related to moral judgement. The contributions of scholars such as Lawrence Blum are taken into account and carefully analysed in order to demonstrate how moral judgement needs moral perception and how in turn moral perception cannot function properly without empathy.
After the great enthusiasm about the moral potentialities of empathy of the last thirty years, th... more After the great enthusiasm about the moral potentialities of empathy of the last thirty years, this phenomenon has been recently called into question, if not openly criticized, by both philosophers and psychologists among whom we find Jesse Prinz or Paul Bloom. This paper aims to show why empathy should not too easily be regarded as useless or even deleterious for morality and to propose a special role for it. In order to reach this goal, I will briefly sketch what I mean with the term empathy and how is this psychological mechanism different from other akin phenomena like compassion. I will then turn my attention to some criticisms that can be made about the role of empathy for morality which show that empathy seems not a necessary element of the three main dimensions of morality, that is moral judgment, moral development and moral conduct. After that, I will try to defend empathy thanks to the identification of some important roles it can play both at a moral and at an epistemolog...
This book has two main objectives. The first is to identify and adequately describe the phenome... more This book has two main objectives. The first is to identify and adequately describe the phenomenon of empathy. This essentially means offering a strong, reasoned and accurate description of the phenomenon of empathy in order to capture the essence of the empathic phenomenon and clearly distinguish it from other similar emotional phenomena such as sympathy or compassion
The second part focuses on the role that this phenomenon can play on the ethical-moral level. The question is whether empathy is necessary or at least important for morality, and if so, to what extent, in what way and for what reasons.
Lack of Empathy and Dehumanisation Ask a person (at least, a person of Western origin, who are th... more Lack of Empathy and Dehumanisation Ask a person (at least, a person of Western origin, who are the people with whom, as a European, I am most acquainted) to tell you what was the darkest period of human history and they will usually answer either the 'Middle Ages' or the period of the great twentieth-century totalitarianisms, especially the time of the Naziregime in Europe and Communism under Stalin in Russia. Alternatively, and more precisely, ask an individual what was the period when humanity really hit bottom and showed its cruellest face, and they will in all probability think of National-Socialism in Germany and the tragedy of the Holocaust. It is, therefore, not surprising that Arne Johan Vetlesen takes this example as emblematic to discuss the processes of dehumanisation, and since this is a theme that has also emerged in this book, it is seemingly appropriate if we take it as the fil rouge linking lack of empathy with dehumanisation and amorality. Recall our discussion about Eichmann: there we said that Eichmann was guilty of dehumanising his victims, whom he did not regard as human beings, but as mere 'numbers'. However, there is a dehumanising process that Eichmann carried out earlier than that applied to his victims and it is the one he practiced on himself, letting himself be treated as an instrument by his superiors, as means, and not as end in himself. Vetlesen calls this process one of double dehumanisation. 1 I will argue in what follows 1
The account given by Prinz about moral education is, briefly, the following: 1 a child develops m... more The account given by Prinz about moral education is, briefly, the following: 1 a child develops moral competence thanks to imitation; in particular, the child has to be able to react with negative emotions in the presence of negative states of affairs, for example, the suffering or distress of another subject or the disapproval of caregivers and, conversely, to react with positive emotions in the presence of positive states of affairs. Now, it is understandable that to be able to react with positive or negative feelings in certain contexts it cannot suffice to possess a mere disposition to feel basic emotions, like joy, sadness, disgust, or fear; the child also needs the ability to discern other's feelings and emotions. Here is where imitation plays its part: these emotional dispositions are, in fact, established by imitation and emotional contagion. Children learn to mimic perceived emotions through vocalisations, facial expressions, and gestures, for example, and then eventually come to feel, by means of imitation and especially emotional contagion, the inner states of others. Growing up, they will learn that, in response to given emotions experienced thanks to emotional contagion, certain reactions are in order. Thus, for instance, the sadness they feel thanks to emotional contagion from someone who is suffering will elicit a consolatory response learnt via imitation. Within this scope, Prinz sees the failure of psychopaths (besides their incapacity to be moved by fear, admiration, and other emotions) in their inability to become 'infected' by the feelings of others and to respond accordingly.
What I call 'anti-empathism', that is, the tendency by scholars dealing with empathy to criticise... more What I call 'anti-empathism', that is, the tendency by scholars dealing with empathy to criticise this phenomenon either at the ontological and epistemological level (by contesting that it is really possible to feel what another feels) 1 or at the ethical/moral level (by questioning the role it is supposed to play in the moral sphere or as the founding element of an ethics), 2 is very recent and, for this reason, it cannot yet count on many supporters. Nonetheless, as usually happens with young movements advancing a provocative thesis, the number of academics advocating this view is rapidly rising. In what follows, I will analyse the perspective on empathy of the most representative among the 'ethical' anti-empathists, namely, Jesse Prinz and Paul Bloom (a perspective which is very often complementary, when not overlapping), and then criticise it in order to make room for an alternative point of view on the matter. My intention is to reject most of the criticisms made of empathy by Prinz and Bloom whilst at the same time distancing myself from empathy-enthusiasts (whom I shall label 'pro-empathists'). As I have said more than once, my intention is to present a third alternative way of thinking about the moral dimension of empathy, which, although perhaps less provocative, and for this reason also less glamorous than the
In the last chapter I reviewed all the most important and striking criticisms proffered against e... more In the last chapter I reviewed all the most important and striking criticisms proffered against empathy. What should be clear by now is that no matter what many politicians, psychologists, neuroscientists, ethologists, economists, or even our own common sense may say, empathy has limits and shortcomings, as well as biases. Empathy is fallible, manipulatable, and inaccurate. For some scholars, this makes it not only unsuitable for morality, but deleterious for it: empathy is not necessary and not sufficient for morality at best and dangerously noxious at worst. What will now follow is in some sense a defence of empathy. It is not a defence tout court, an unconditional support for the case of empathy and an attack on all contrary theses. I will not proceed with the confutation of all criticisms cited against empathy. Empathy undoubtedly has its limits and it is not always a secure guide for acting morally, but it has, nonetheless, a central role to play for morality. The structure of the following sections will, for the most part, mirror the one employed in the previous one, when discussing the critiques of Jesse Prinz. In other words, the main framework will be constituted by the analysis of the role of empathy in, respectively, moral judgement, moral development/education, and moral motivation/conduct. The boundaries will, nevertheless, not always be so rigid, as the issues at hand are fairly interrelated, hence, cross-references will be in order. Now, as previously mentioned, the question to ask is: what is the role played by empathy in moral judgement?
A Brief Historical Reconstruction Few concepts have received the same immense amount of attention... more A Brief Historical Reconstruction Few concepts have received the same immense amount of attention as that obtained by empathy in the last four or five decades. Empathy was literally everywhere to be found: in the popular press, 1 in the mouth of worldleaders, 2 and of course in the research on different topics and disciplines such as psychopathy, 3 autism spectrum disorders, 4 medical care, 5 ethics
The way Battaly construes her argument against empathy is rather complex, but I will try to summa... more The way Battaly construes her argument against empathy is rather complex, but I will try to summarise it in a way that is clear and hopefully faithful to the author's intentions: if empathy is a virtue, then it must be intentional or at least have some voluntary component. In fact, as Aristotle had rightfully noticed in the Nicomachean Ethics, we praise or blame people depending on their virtuous or vicious behaviour, and we do that because we hold them responsible for their actions. Of course, one can only be responsible for something that one has control over. Ergo, virtues are traits of character that we must have control over. For this reason, all the concepts of empathy which describe it as a fundamentally automatic and involuntary phenomenon must be ruled out, for they cannot, by definition, regard empathy as a virtue. Necessarily, the only notion of empathy remaining, the one which conceives it as a phenomenon in some way controllable, is that of empathy as perspective-taking. However, the situation is not that simple. It might, in fact, be that perspective-taking is not a virtue, but a skill. Battaly resorts once again to Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics to illustrate the analogies and the differences between the two concepts. A skill can be defined as 'an acquired ability to reliably attain a particular end'. 1 In fact, we are not born with skills, we have to train and develop them, and once we have developed them well enough, skills grant us special abilities to attain various ends: to 1 Battaly (2011, p. 290).
As I said in the previous footnote, it is not my intention to defend a straightforward care-ethic... more As I said in the previous footnote, it is not my intention to defend a straightforward care-ethicist approach to morality, however, I think that care ethicists have contributed to the emergence and the consequent examination of some facets of morality that have been disregarded for far too long in the sphere of moral philosophy. One example is the fact that traditional ethics, such as deontological and teleological ethics, have not taken the context of moral subjects into account. The way in which traditional moral philosophers have conceived ethical theories is almost solely compatible with the model of a socially privileged, independent, and ablebodied male, capable of making isolated transactions in the world. The problem is that this kind of experience is not shared by women and by other marginalised subjects, who have a different conception of what moral agency really means. So, whilst utilitarian and Kantian ethics attempt to answer the question 'what is the right thing to do?' irrespective of the individuals and the context, care ethics have had the distinction of highlighting the importance of responsiveness. 1 Since ethics is conceived here as relational, as dealing with subjects interacting with each other, the knowledge of what is good and bad is generated, beyond various guiding principles, by attentiveness and openness to the other. Hence, the moral concern is always addressed to the other, not to any particular action abstracted from the (relational) context. 2 1 Held (2006, p. 83). 2 Hamington (2017, p. 265).
The Way to a Definition It is not the aim of this work to offer an in-depth analysis of the philo... more The Way to a Definition It is not the aim of this work to offer an in-depth analysis of the philosophy of Lipps, but it was important to start our investigation of empathy with a brief report of his view on the matter, primarily for the reason that he was the first to talk about empathy (not sympathy) and to use this concept in a systematic way central to his own theory and, secondly, because more than hundred years after Lipps' book, there is still no agreement among the scholars both on the definition of empathy and on the precise role it can play. In other words, although Lipps' desire was to clarify the concept and use it consistently, his objective is nowadays still far from being achieved. As a matter of fact, for the young academic approaching the subject area of empathy, the landscape can be quite disorienting and distressing: empathy is a 'hot topic' nowadays, and it has managed to enter the field of inquiry of disciplines ranging from philosophy to the neurosciences, from psychology to zoology, and from anthropology to economics. Of course, given the incredible amount of work made during the years by scholars with such different backgrounds and opinions on the matter, it cannot be surprising to see how blurred the definition of empathy is. Just to give two concrete examples of the terminological, semantical, and content-affecting chaos which exists in the literature, we can take into consideration the works of Coplan (2011) and Batson (2011). In the first, the philosopher Amy Coplan defines empathy as: '[A] complex imaginative process in which an observer simulates another person's situated
Empathy and the Importance of Affectivity This last citation from Kant offers us enough food for ... more Empathy and the Importance of Affectivity This last citation from Kant offers us enough food for thought to go further than him and, indeed, to go past him. We have already said that what has moral significance goes far beyond what can be made an object of duty. Now we even have Kant's confirmation of this. However, there is more that deserves to be highlighted. The fact is that the attitudes we possess, the values we adhere to, and even the feelings we experience constitute an irreducible part of our moral self and reflect on us morally as much as the actions we perform. We have made it clear earlier on that empathy is to be considered a virtue and mention has been made of the many different forms necessary or at least useful for morality. We also stated that resorting to HLE is a choice (it does not occur automatically) and in that sense we are responsible for its development and use. Until now it has been easy to understand what is meant by saying empathy is a part of our moral self and reflects on us morally. However, what about LLE? Does the faculty to automatically perceive the thoughts and feelings of others also reflect morally on us? Is it also a part of our moral self? My claim is that it is exactly like our emotions. It would be a mistake to consider what we experience, as opposed to what we choose or initiate, as stranger to the moral landscape. It is true that with relation to the emotions (and to LLE) we are in a certain sense 'passive', because we feel we 'undergo' a certain emotion and we do not decide to have it. Nevertheless, emotions also depend largely on our beliefs and on the attitudes we come to assume, and these are elements under our control. This in turn explains why we can, for
This book has two main objectives. The first is to identify and adequately describe the phenomeno... more This book has two main objectives. The first is to identify and adequately describe the phenomenon of empathy. This essentially means offering a strong, reasoned and accurate description of the phenomenon of empathy in order to capture the essence of the empathic phenomenon and clearly distinguish it from other similar emotional phenomena such as sympathy or compassion The second part focuses on the role that this phenomenon can play on the ethical-moral level. The question is whether empathy is necessary or at least important for morality, and if so, to what extent, in what way and for what reasons. This is an open access book.
This chapter defends the view that empathy is tightly linked to the concept (and the phenomenon) ... more This chapter defends the view that empathy is tightly linked to the concept (and the phenomenon) of moral perception, which is in turn closely related to moral judgement. The contributions of scholars such as Lawrence Blum are taken into account and carefully analysed in order to demonstrate how moral judgement needs moral perception and how in turn moral perception cannot function properly without empathy.
After the great enthusiasm about the moral potentialities of empathy of the last thirty years, th... more After the great enthusiasm about the moral potentialities of empathy of the last thirty years, this phenomenon has been recently called into question, if not openly criticized, by both philosophers and psychologists among whom we find Jesse Prinz or Paul Bloom. This paper aims to show why empathy should not too easily be regarded as useless or even deleterious for morality and to propose a special role for it. In order to reach this goal, I will briefly sketch what I mean with the term empathy and how is this psychological mechanism different from other akin phenomena like compassion. I will then turn my attention to some criticisms that can be made about the role of empathy for morality which show that empathy seems not a necessary element of the three main dimensions of morality, that is moral judgment, moral development and moral conduct. After that, I will try to defend empathy thanks to the identification of some important roles it can play both at a moral and at an epistemolog...
This book has two main objectives. The first is to identify and adequately describe the phenome... more This book has two main objectives. The first is to identify and adequately describe the phenomenon of empathy. This essentially means offering a strong, reasoned and accurate description of the phenomenon of empathy in order to capture the essence of the empathic phenomenon and clearly distinguish it from other similar emotional phenomena such as sympathy or compassion
The second part focuses on the role that this phenomenon can play on the ethical-moral level. The question is whether empathy is necessary or at least important for morality, and if so, to what extent, in what way and for what reasons.
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The second part focuses on the role that this phenomenon can play on the ethical-moral level. The question is whether empathy is necessary or at least important for morality, and if so, to what extent, in what way and for what reasons.
This is an open access book.
The second part focuses on the role that this phenomenon can play on the ethical-moral level. The question is whether empathy is necessary or at least important for morality, and if so, to what extent, in what way and for what reasons.
This is an open access book.