AGAINST EMPATHY

TLDR

Empathy is a vicarious emotion that may be considered a precondition for moral judgment, a view associated with Hume, though concern is a slightly better but still limited construct. The author argues that empathy is not a component, necessary cause, reliable guide, foundation, or motivating force for moral judgments, and instead proposes that emotions such as anger, disgust, guilt, and admiration underlie moral judgments. Empathy is prone to biases that can be harmful, whereas emotions like anger, disgust, guilt, and admiration provide the sentimental foundation for morality.

Abstract

abstract Empathy can be characterized as a vicarious emotion that one person experiences when reflecting on the emotion of another. So characterized, empathy is sometimes regarded as a precondition on moral judgment. This seems to have been Hume's view. I review various ways in which empathy might be regarded as a precondition and argue against each of them: empathy is not a component, a necessary cause, a reliable epistemic guide, a foundation for justification, or the motivating force behind our moral judgments. In fact, empathy is prone to biases that render it potentially harmful. Another construct—concern—fares somewhat better, but it is also of limited use. I argue that, instead of empathy, moral judgments involve emotions such as anger, disgust, guilt, and admiration. These, not empathy, provide the sentimental foundation for morality.