Is Empathy Necessary for Morality?

Prinz, Jesse

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199539956.003.0014

Cited by 203 publications

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“…(1994) and Hoffman (2000), Darwall recognizes that empathy can exist, in its most simple form, solely in an emotional contagion. Prinz (2011) agrees with this position, defending that empathy requires a kind of emotional mimicry. He argues that it may appear as much in its simplest form as it does as a complex cognitive process.…”

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The empathic bases of moral behaviour

Silveira¹

2017

Revista Conjectura

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Abstract:This article aims to examine the possibility to explain the basis of moral behaviour in natural terms consistent with evolutionary theory. The defense position begins with the clarification of the concept of empathy, as done by Hume and Darwin, plus contemporary research in the areas of neuroscience, evolutionary psychology and ethology. My argument points in favor of the hypothesis that socially relevant emotions are regulators of social behaviour, being a criterion for distinguishing between moral and purely social relations. What should be understood is in that bases psychobiological mechanisms of sociability, particularly empathy and social instincts, operate as regulators of normative behaviour in small groups and how this relates to the way moral distinctions are made in everyday life. The focus of this investigation will be to identify the elements that are at the root of such behaviour and explain it without resorting to metaphysical concepts. I will present empathy as the candidate to answer the question of how these mechanisms developed within the evolutionary process and how to add an intersubjective element to social relevant emotions, so that they have the strength to inhibit socially relevant behaviours.

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confidence: 77%

“…The second is the fact that the empirical evidence of the role of empathy in morals is disputed. In this sense, while theoreticians such as Hauser (2006) defend the importance of empathy, others such as Prinz (2011) maintain that only emotions play a central role in morality.…”

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confidence: 99%

The empathic bases of moral behaviour

Silveira¹

2017

Revista Conjectura

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“…Finally, Prinz likes to emphasize the 'dark side' of empathy. It is easily manipulated, selective, subject to cuteness effects, and prone to in-group biases as well as proximity and salience effects (Prinz 2011b).…”

Section: Conclusion: Vindicating or Debunking Moral Judgment?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In his papers against empathy, he does, in fact, briefly consider a version of Smith's impartial spectator account (Prinz 2011b) and…”

Section: Conclusion: Vindicating or Debunking Moral Judgment?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Empathy, Emotion Regulation, and Moral Judgment

Kauppinen¹

2014

Empathy and Morality

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For Heidi Maibom (ed.) Empathy and Morality, Oxford University Press. AbstractEmpathy's role in moral judgment has not received as much attention as its role in moral motivation. Yet given that emotions have at least a causal influence on moral belief, it is plausible that empathy makes an important difference. However, critics like Jesse Prinz point to empathy's inherent partiality and limitations as reasons to think that it has only a limited explanatory role and that it is normatively problematic. Drawing on the classical sentimentalist tradition in philosophy and recent psychological literature, I defend the view that when empathic reactions are subjected to emotion regulation by reference to an ideal perspective, they are after all fit to play a fundamental role in explaining why we make nonself-interested, interpersonally acceptable moral judgments. Getting along with others puts pressure on us to down-regulate empathy with the near and dear and up-regulate empathy with the distant and different. When we successfully do so, there's good reason to think that the resulting judgments are vindicated rather than undermined.In recent years, some striking claims have been made about the importance of empathyroughly, the capacity to share the feelings of others -to morality and prosocial action.Perhaps most notably, Michael Slote (2007Slote ( , 2010 maintains that empathy is the "cement of the moral universe" that "arguably constitutes the basis of both metaethics and normative ethics" (2010, 4). As inevitably happens with philosophical enthusiasms, there has also been a backlash, even among those who believe emotions are central to moral thought. Within the sentimentalist camp, Jesse Prinz (2011a, b) makes a thorough case against empathy, arguing it's neither constitutively, causally, developmentally, epistemically, nor motivationally necessary for moralizing. Indeed, Prinz argues that empathy is likely to lead us astray in moral thought, however important it is for personal relationships. Shaun Nichols (2004) and

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“…3 Though the terms "sympathy" and "empathy" are sometimes used interchangeably, Bekoff and Pierce recognize a distinction between empathy as a type of emotional mimicry (feeling what another is feeling) and sympathy as having an emotion on behalf on another (feeling for the other) (see also Prinz, 2011). They also take empathy to come in various degrees of complexity, ranging from lowlevel emotional contagion, where an emotion is triggered in an individual as result of merely observing a behavioural cue from another (such as a distressed or fearful facial expression), to cognitive empathy, where the individual is able to fully adopt the emotional perspective of another and understand the reasons for it (e.g., understanding that another individual is fearful and what has caused this).…”

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Animal morality: What is the debate about?

Fitzpatrick

2017

Biol Philos

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Empirical studies of the social lives of non-human primates, cetaceans, and other social animals have prompted scientists and philosophers to debate the question of whether morality and moral cognition exists in non-human animals. Some researchers have argued that morality does exist in several animal species, others that these species may possess various evolutionary building blocks or precursors to morality, but not quite the genuine article, while some have argued that nothing remotely resembling morality can be found in any non-human species. However, these different positions on animal morality generally appear to be motivated more by different conceptions of how the term "morality" is to be defined than on empirical disagreements about animal social behaviour and psychology. After delving deeper into the goals and methodologies of various of the protagonists, I argue that, despite appearances, there are actually two importantly distinct debates over animal morality going on, corresponding to two quite different ways of thinking about what it is to define "morality", "moral cognition", and associated notions. Several apparent skirmishes in the literature are thus cases of researchers simply talking past each other. I then focus on what I take to be the core debate over animal morality, which is concerned with understanding the nature and phylogenetic distribution of morality conceived as a psychological natural kind. I argue that this debate is in fact largely terminological and non-substantive. Finally, I reflect on how this core debate might best be re-framed. 1.Introduction In recent years, there has been much interest in whether morality exists in some non-human animals (henceforth, "animals"), or, put differently, whether some animals possess a moral psychology: whether they possess the requisite psychological capacities to engage in some form of moral cognition and action-for instance, make judgments of moral approval or disapproval about others' behaviour, internalize and enforce moral rules or norms, and act for moral reasons (e.g., act punitively towards another individual because of a moral evaluation of that individual's behaviour).Such questions have been prompted by a burgeoning empirical literature on the remarkably complex and intricate social lives, particularly of our closest primate 2 relatives, but also of other social mammals like elephants, domestic dogs, wolves, whales, dolphins, and rats, and even some non-mammalian species, such as ravens.For example, chimpanzees appear to engage in third-party policing of behaviour, which seems to indicate the existence and enforcement of norms of conduct within their communities (de Waal, 1996(de Waal, , 2014Rudolf von Rohr, et al., 2012). Special place is typically accorded to infants, for instance, such that aggression towards them is met with loud protests and active intervention on the part of uninvolved bystanders (Rudolf von Rohr, et al., 2011. Many other social mammals also appear to enforce various behavioural norms. For instance, m...

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Is Empathy Necessary for Morality?

Cited by 203 publications

References 17 publications

The empathic bases of moral behaviour

The empathic bases of moral behaviour

Empathy, Emotion Regulation, and Moral Judgment

Animal morality: What is the debate about?

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