Abstract
One of the most important features of empathy is that it brings information to our attention and is one of the few ways that we have to connect with others’ emotions and points of view. This enables empathy to have the epistemic functions of information-gathering and understanding others, outlined in Chapter 3. But what can empathy contribute to moral thought and deliberation? Perspective-taking empathy in particular impacts our beliefs about others, our judgments about them, and our motivation to perform certain actions, and so it seems central to moral deliberation. But in order for empathy to contribute to moral deliberation and provide adequate moral guidance, the tendency to empathize with those who are most similar to ourselves, or empathic bias, must somehow be surmounted. This can happen when empathy is used in tandem with moral principles, and informed by moral concerns, so that empathy can motivate the achievement of a variety of ethical ends.
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Notes
Stephen Darwall (2006) The Second Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 3.
Immanuel Kant (1797/1996) Mary Gregor, ed. The Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 204 [6:456].
Thomas Hobbes (1651/1996) Richard Tuck, ed. Leviathan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Chapter 15, section 79, pp. 109–110, emphasis added.
In another passage, Hobbes more overtly suggests that empathetic perspective-taking is instrumental to determining whether an action is morally acceptable: “There is an easy rule to know upon a sudden, whether the action I be to do, be against the law of nature or not. that a man imagine himself in the place of the party with whom he hath to do, and reciprocally him in his. Which is no more but a changing, as it were, of the scales.” S.A. Lloyd (2009) Morality in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes: Cases in the Law of Nature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 17.
This illustration explains in another way Kavka’s well-known argument that Hobbes’ moral theory uses the Copper Rule. (See Gregory Kavka (1996) Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.)
Frederique de Vignemont and Uta Frith (2008) “Autism, Morality and Empathy,” in Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, ed. Moral Psychology Volume 3, Cambridge: MIT Press, p. 273.
Lionel Robbins is perhaps the most well-known economist who argued that mental states, including utilities, could not be measured. Lionel Robbins (1938) “Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility: A Comment,” The Economic Journal, 48(192): 635–641.
John Harsanyi (1977) Rational Behavior and Bargaining Equilibrium in Games and Social Situations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 53.
John Harsanyi (1982) “Morality and the Theory of Rational Behavior,” in Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams, eds. Utilitarianism and Beyond, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 50, emphasis mine.
Thus, Harsanyi’s idea of utility is best interpreted as “preference-satisfaction” and not expected utility, which is simply a representation of preferences. John Weymark argues that Harsanyi’s discussion of psychological reactions and satisfaction as part of an interpersonal comparison reflects his belief that well-being is more than just preferences. John Weymark (1991) “A Reconsideration of the Harsanyi-Sen Debate on Utilitarianism,” in Jon Elster and John Roemer, eds. Interpersonal Comparisons of Well-being, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 308.
R.M. Hare (1963) Freedom and Reason, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 94.
John Rawls (1951) “Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics,” in Samuel Freeman, ed. The Collected Papers of John Rawls, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999, p. 3.
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© 2011 Julinna C. Oxley
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Oxley, J.C. (2011). Empathy and Moral Deliberation. In: The Moral Dimensions of Empathy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230347809_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230347809_5
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