Heidi L. Maibom - Empathy and Morality

(p.iv)

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• KRISTIN ANDREWS is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at York University.

• C. DANIEL BATSON is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at the University of Kansas.

• RUSSIL DURRANT is Senior Lecturer in the School of Social and Cultural Studies at Victoria University of Wellington.

• NANCY EISENBERG is Regents Professor in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University.

• K. RICHARD GARRETT is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Bentley University.

• GEORGE GRAHAM is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Georgia State University.

• LORI GRUEN is Professor of Philosophy, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Environmental Studies at Wesleyan University.

• JESSICA A. HOBSON is Senior Research Fellow in the Behavioural and Brain Sciences Unit of Institute of Child Health at University College London.

• R. PETER HOBSON is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology in the Behavioural and Brain Sciences Unit of the Institute of Child Health at University College London and the Tavistock Clinic.

• MARTIN L. HOFFMAN is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at New York University.

• DOUGLAS HOLLAN is Professor of Anthropology and Luckman Distinguished Teacher at UCLA, co-director of the FPR-UCLA Culture, Brain, and Development Program in Mental Health, and an instructor at the New Center for Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles.

• ANTTI KAUPPINEN is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin.

• (p.viii)

  CLAUS LAMM is Professor and Head of the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit of the Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods at the University of Vienna.

• HEIDI L. MAIBOM is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati.

• JASMINKA MAJDANDI is Postdoctoral Researcher in the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit of the Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods at the University of Vienna.

• ABIGAIL A. MARSH is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Georgetown University.

• TRACY L. SPINRAD is Associate Professor in the School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University.

• GIUSEPPE UGAZIO is Postdoctoral Researcher in the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit of the Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods at the University of Vienna.

• TONY WARD is Professor in the School of Psychology at Victoria University of Wellington.

The term empathy denotes a range of emotional responses we have to what others feel or the situation they are in, such as sympathy, empathic anger, or compassion, in addition to some form of appreciation of their psychological state. It also sometimes denotes a purely cognitive state of understanding another. Depending on the subject area and the aims of the theorist, empathy may be more narrowly defined. However, many classical empathy scalessuch as the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, Bryants Index of Empathy, or the Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathymeasure not simply someones sympathy toward others, but also her tendency to react emotionally to them, to catch their emotions, to be distressed when others are seriously hurt, and to take their perspective (Bryant ).

The rather diverse use of empathy has given rise to some despondency among theorists, who often claim that the term has such a broad usage that it is almost impossible to capture (see Coplan & Goldie ). Within the domain of empathy-related emotions, there are many important differences in emotional directionality, quality, and so on, but this does not change the fact that these emotions are intimately connected, making empathy studies a more coherent field than we are led to believe. Of course cognitive empathy is not an emotion, but an understanding of others. Typically, however, it involves perspective taking or imaginatively engaging with others in their situation. That is, in cognitive empathy we are re-centering our thoughts so that they may be said to be more reflective of those of a person in that situation than of the situation we are in ourselves. Hoffmans basic idea, then, is extendable to all forms of empathy.

Most think that it is possible to have cognitive empathy without affective empathy. I can think of anothers emotions without thereby experiencing these emotions myself. Is the reverse true? It is widely agreed that to be able to affectively empathize with others, we need only a cursory understanding of the nature of others emotional states and of the fact that they are states of another. Shaun Nichols, for instance, argues that we need only be able to tell that the other is in distress or pain to be able to empathize with their distress and pain (Nichols , 195). But such a stringent account leaves out what most people would call empathy and most of what the psychological literature regards as empathy. Probably the cognitive sophistication that most have in mind when they think of developed empathy lies halfway between Nichols minimal position and Goldies pregnant one.