Empathy

and Morality
Heidi L. Maibom
Title Pages

Empathy and Morality

(p.iv)
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Contents

Title Pages
List of Contributors

1 Introduction: (Almost) Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about

Empathy
Heidi L. Maibom

2 Empathy-Induced Altruism and Morality

C. Daniel Batson

3 Empathy and Morality

Tracy L. Spinrad and Nancy Eisenberg

4 Empathy, Justice, and Social Change

Martin L. Hoffman

5 Empathy, Emotion Regulation, and Moral Judgment

Antti Kauppinen

6 At the Empathetic Center of Our Moral Lives

K. Richard Garrett and George Graham

7 Empathy and Moral Deficits in Psychopathy

Abigail A. Marsh

8 Are Empathy and Morality Linked?

Giuseppe Ugazio, Jasminka Majdandic, and Claus Lamm

9 On Empathy
R. Peter Hobson and Jessica A. Hobson

10 Empathy in Other Apes

Kristin Andrews and Lori Gruen

11 Psychological Altruism, Empathy, and Offender Rehabilitation

Tony Ward and Russil Durrant

12 Empathy and Morality in Ethnographic Perspective

Douglas Hollan
References
Index
(p.vii) List of Contributors
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.
Introduction: (Almost) Everything You
Ever Wanted to Know about Empathy
Heidi L. Maibom

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 1982, Davis 1983b, Mehrabian & Epstein 1972).
Philosophers tend to be less ecumenical about their definition of
empathy and typically insist that affective empathy is an emotion-
matching, other-oriented and other-caused emotional state (Coplan
2011, Darwall 1998, Maibom 2007, Sober & Wilson 1998). Some
psychologists think of empathic concern as the prototype of empathy.
Empathic concern is an other-oriented emotion that need not match the
emotion the other person is experiencing as long as it is congruent with
her welfare (Batson 2011). This empathic concern (p.2) is what many
philosophers and psychologists talk of as sympathy (Darwall 1998,
Eisenberg 2000, Sober & Wilson 1998).
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 2011a).1
People therefore typically specify what they take the term to mean. It is
a sound approach, and one I shall take here. However, the rumors about
the impossibly diverse usage of empathy are exaggerated. In practice,
almost nobody talks of an emotion as empathetic unless the agent is
aware that it is caused by the perceived, imagined, or inferred emotion
or plight of another, or it expresses concern for the welfare of another.
Martin Hoffmans characterization of an empathic emotion as an
emotion that is more appropriate to the state or situation of someone
other than the person who experiences it best captures the various
usages of the term (Hoffman 2000). 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 2001).
Similarly, Frans de Waal and Stephanie Preston understand empathy in
terms of a perception-action model (see below), which also involves
little cognitive sophistication (Preston & de Waal 2002). At the same
time, it is evident that any sophisticated empathizing requires more
advanced cognitive capacities. How much is debated. At the extreme end,
we have Peter (p.3) Goldie who maintains that to empathize, I must be
aware of the other as a centre of consciousness distinct from myself, I
must have a substantial characterization of the other person, and I
must have a narrative that I can imaginative reenact (Goldie 2000, 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.
1. Affective Empathy and Empathy-Related Emotions
It is typical to distinguish between emotional contagion, empathy,
sympathy, and personal distress. The below is representative of how
many philosophers and psychologists think of these constructs (Maibom
2012a, Sober & Wilson 1998):
(Affective) Empathy
S empathizes with Os experience of emotion E in C if S feels E for O
as a result of: believing or perceiving that O feels E, or imagining
being in C.
Sympathy
S sympathizes with O when S feels sad for O as a result of believing
or perceiving that something bad has happened to O, or S feels
happy for O as a result of believing or perceiving that something
good has happened to O.
Emotional Contagion
Ss feeling E is a case of emotional contagion if S feels E as a result
of believing that O feels E, perceiving that O is T-ing, or of
imagining being in the C of O.
Personal Distress
S is personally distressed by Os experience of emotion E in C if S
feels Enot for O, but for herself (S)as a result of believing or
perceiving that O feels E, or imagining being in C, OR as a result of
believing that something bad has happened to O.
S refers to the subject who experiences the emotion, O to some other
person who is the source of the emotion Sexperiences, E to an emotion,
T-ing is a bodily expression typically associated with an emotion (e.g.,
smiling or crying) (p.4) and C is a circumstance or a situation. To say
that S feels E for O is to say that the E that Sexperiences is empathic; it
reflects Ss awareness that she is not feeling the emotion directly or for
herself, but she is feeling it for O.
These emotional reactions are deeply interpersonal insofar as they are
caused by some awareness of what is happening to someone else,
although emotional contagion may (typically) happen below the
threshold of conscious awareness. To distinguish them from one
another, one needs to ask whether: (i) the emotion is experienced
directly (for the self) or for someone else, (ii) the object of the emotion
is the others emotion or their welfare, and (iii) what the subject feels
aims to match what the object (the other person) feels or not (emotion
matching). In empathic distress, one feels distress for the other; in
personal distress, one feels distress for the self. In empathy the focus is
on what the other is feeling or might reasonably be expected to feel,
whereas sympathy is directed at the others welfare, regardless of what
he is feeling. Empathy aims to match the emotion that the other
experiences or could reasonably be expected to experience in her
situation. By contrast, the affective quality of sympathy only matches in
the broadest possible terms the welfare of the other: sadness or some
similar emotion when the other person is negatively affected by what is
happening to him, and happiness when he is positively affected by his
circumstances.
Emotional contagion is often thought to be the most basic emotional
reaction to the emotions of others that is still empathic in nature. It is
said that we catch others emotions, for example, their mirth, sadness,
or anxiety. The term catch is meant to reflect the fact that the process
is often relatively automatic and involuntary. Reactive crying in infants
is often thought to be the first expression of emotional contagion
(Simner 1971, Sagi & Hoffman 1976, Martin & Clark 1982). Reactive
barking in dogs may be the canine equivalent (see also contagious
yawning in chimpanzees, Campbell & de Waal 2011). Many think that
mature empathy develops out of this basic tendency to feel what others
feel. Yet emotional contagion need contain little awareness of the other
as experiencing the emotions that are caught this way. Perhaps it doesnt
even involve any real understanding that the other is a minded or feeling
other. If I catch your mirth, for instance, I might just end up feeling
happy without much thought about why that is. In my mind, spending
time with you makes me happy. Of course, I amalso capable of thinking
of you as a minded other, but that is orthogonal to the issue of what is
involved in emotional contagion. Emotional contagion appears to play
an important role in social relationships beyond that of understanding
or feeling with or for the other. For instance, people who mimic one
another report liking each other more (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson
1994).
Often we are aware that we feel what we feel because of what another
feels; we feel sad because she feels sad. Some people, like Eisenberg,
would regard (p.5) this as empathy proper. I talk of empathy proper as
an emotion that is felt for the other in addition to with them, but it is
important to stress that the feeling for that I have in mind is not
meant to include concern as a feeling or attitude felt separate from,
and in addition to, the particular emotion that is felt for the other
(empathic anger, say). The extent to which feeling for, as I am using
the expression here, connotes concern for another is the extent to which
such a feeling or attitude is implicit in the fact that one feels an emotion
that is more appropriate to the situation of the other than to ones own.
Feeling for is to be understood broadly so as to include cases where I
am angry with a person because that person wronged you where, in a
sense, you are neither the object nor the subject of my emotion. What
makes it a case of empathetic anger is that I am feeling it not directly as
a sort of objective moral anger, but rather I feel it on your behalf.
I take it that what distinguishes empathy from personal distress is that
whereas in personal distress the distress is felt for oneself just as in
ordinary distress, in empathic distress it is felt for the distressed other.
Described in this way, empathic distress seems to be a development of
the emotional contagion of distress. Personal distress, on the other
hand, may be just caught distress, or another development of
emotional contagion, though what would differentiate the two is
unclear. It is therefore tempting to think of emotional contagion as the
original affective state that underlies all empathy, personal distress, and,
as we shall see, sympathy. This may ultimately be what Preston and de
Waal have in mind with their perception-action model (though the
model includes many interesting details glossed over here). According to
this model the attended perception of the objects state automatically
activates the subjects representation of the state, situation, and object,
and . . . activation of these representations automatically primes or
generates the associated autonomic or somatic responses, unless
inhibited (Preston & de Waal 2002, 4). Note, however, that in this
model what causes empathy is seeing the affect of the other. In mature
persons, thinking of the others thoughts, feelings, or of their situation is
a cause of empathy, as is imaginatively engaging with her perspective.
Setting aside for the moment the phylogeny and ontogeny of empathy, it
seems that what transforms emotional contagion into other-related
emotions is cognition. Cognitive capacities and/or activities morph
contagious distress into empathic distress, for instance. That is, we may
get to feel an emotion by catching it, while being aware that the other
person is experiencing this emotion, and thus thinking that we are
feeling what we are feeling because he is feeling what he is feeling. This
thought process might be what transforms contagious distress into
empathic distress. That is, this might be what transforms the emotion,
whichever one it happens to be, from being directly felt (p.6) to being
empathic. With experience, such transitions become relatively
automatic. This is speculative, of course.
It is also often thought that sympathy is a development either out of
emotional contagion or empathy (Eisenberg2000, Hoffman 2000).
Hoffman (2000) sometimes talks of it as a later developmental state
compared to empathy. For Nancy Eisenberg (2000), sympathy typically
is a reaction to the emotional arousal caused by empathy, cognition, or
perspective taking. For someone like Max Scheler (1973), sympathy is
only made possible by the subjects prior empathizing with the other. By
contrast to empathy, sympathy is not emotion matching but welfare
directed. We sympathize with someone in a bad situation because of her
situation, in relative independence of what she feels about it. Sympathy
is often thought to be the most sophisticated of the empathic emotions
because it moves beyond the feelings of the subject and considers her
wellbeing (Hoffman2000, Darwall 1998). Sympathy is typically thought
of as sympathy with someone in a bad situation, and consequently as a
sad emotion. Sympathy expresses concern for the other; hence it is often
called empathic concern (Batson 1991 & 2011, Davis 1983b). This
concern can presumably also express itself in happier ways, for instance
as happiness when good things happen to someone.
I have talked about sadness and happiness as affective descriptors of
sympathy, but it is not quite clear how to think of the affective quality of
sympathy. Daniel Batson describes what we call sympathy here and he
calls empathic concern as feeling sympathetic, kind, compassionate,
warm, softhearted, tender, empathetic, concerned, moved, and touched
(Batson 2011, 103). The affective quality here is significantly softer than
that of personal distress, which is described as alarmed, bothered,
disturbed, upset, troubled, worried, anxious, uneasy, grieved, and
distressed (Batson 2011, 103). However, if personal distress differs from
empathetic distress only in its objectthe self as opposed to the other
and not in the emotion that is felt, then empathy and sympathy typically
differ in their affective quality when the target person is in a distressing
situation. Empathic distress will be unpleasant and strongly negative
whereas sympathy (empathic concern) is less aversive and has a more
tender tone. It is unclear, however, whether researchers generally agree
with Batson on the description of the affective quality of sympathy.
David Sloan Wilson and Elliott Sober, for instance, think of sympathy as
sadness, which expresses something more negative than Batsons list,
yet is not as aversive as the distressed reaction (Sober & Wilson 1998).
What to think of personal distress is a very interesting question in this
literature. People rarely talk of distress, but contrast the concerned
sympathetic orientation with the self-oriented one typical of personal
distress. However, in an intriguing study, Batson and colleagues (Batson,
Early, & Salvarini 1997) (p.7) found that all subjects experience a mix of
sympathy and distress for the self and for the other when confronted
with a subject in need.2 These reactions can be manipulated by
instructionsinstructions concerning what perspective to take on the
situationso that the subject feels more or less of each of them.
Personal distress, therefore, is rarely felt in isolation from other
empathy-related emotions. Furthermore, most subjects describe their
reaction to others in need as involving distress for the other in addition
to feeling distress directly (or: for themselves). This confluence of
emotional reactions, at least on self-report measures, is the cause of
some concern when it comes to conceptualizing empathic emotions in
neatly separate categories. Such concern may be allayed somewhat by
noting that many emotions are seldom felt in isolation, particularly in
isolation from related emotions. For instance, people rarely feel just
shame or just guilt. People tend to feel both shame and guilt (Tangney &
Dearing2002; Deonna, Rodogno, & Terroni 2012). Yet, theories of shame
and guilt are built on such evidence; the emotion that subjects report
feeling more of is typically assumed to be the relevant one in such
systematizations. This tendency may be little more than a continuation
of common practice where we tend to describe ourselves and others as
experiencing one emotion at a time, despite the fact that we often
experience several at the same time. Having said that, I think it is
possible that our common practice leads to seriously distorted theories
of individual emotions. But this points to larger methodological
concerns about the study of emotions that cannot be dealt with here.
Although the directionality or focus of personal distress is important to
distinguish it from empathic distress (self vs. other), its motivational
aspect is what most interests theorists. Batson famously claims that
sympathy (his empathic concern) leads to altruistic motivation and
personal distress leads to egoistic motivation. In other words, people
who feel sympathy for others will help these people out of an ultimate
concern for their wellbeing, whereas people who feel personally
distressed by the distress of others will help ultimately to reduce their
own distress. Less abstractly, people who are personally distressed are
more likely to leave the distressing situation without helping the person
in need than people who feel sympathy if escape is easy and if helping
the other is not very costly. By and large, personal distress is regarded as
an (p.8) unhelpful emotion. Yet some think it is a normal reaction to
situations that are very distressing (Eisenberg & Fabes 1990). If the
other is in great distress, the typical response is personal distress.
Hoffman and Eisenberg talk of empathic over-arousal (Eisenberg &
Fabes 1992, Hoffman 2000). Most people agree that sympathy either
involves or causes altruistic or prosocial motivation. There is more
disagreement about empathy. Some think that an empathic emotion
involves the motivational aspect of that emotion itself, only directed at
the other (Maibom 2007). So, for instance, if anger involves being
motivated to aggress against the person who angered one, empathic
anger involves the motivation to aggress against the person who angered
the person we empathize with. But, as Giuseppe Ugazio, Jasminka
Majdandzic, and Claus Lamm point out in their contribution to this
volume, there has been precious little research on whether empathy
proper involves or causes prosocial motivation.
Distress at others distress is not well researched. The focus is typically
on whether the subject feels sympathy or personal distress for the
person in need or in distress. But this leaves out a truly empathetic
feeling, where the person feels distress for the other person. Most of
Batsons experiments do not distinguish between personal and empathic
distress, since self-report scales measure only the subjective feelings
related to distress, no matter what its directionality. Most of the
psychology literature is the same; it focuses on the type of emotion and
assumes that if there is much distress, it is of the personal kind. One
reason may be that some theorists think that empathic distress, when
strong enough, becomes overwhelming and turns into personal distress
(Hoffman 2000, Eisenberg & Fabes 1992). Perhaps personal distress is a
pretty normal reaction to dramatic situations, e.g. accident victims, but
for ethical reasons, peoples reactions to very dramatic situations are not
well researched. Elsewhere, I have suggested that we think of empathic
distress and personal distress as two sides of the same coin (Maibom
2012). One cannot be distressed for the other without being distressed
oneself. There is nothing about this that implies, strictly speaking, that
this distress should be thought of as direct or personal. However,
because I actually feel distress in addition to being aware that the other
person is distressed, I do think of myselfas feeling distress too. This is
why some people avoid others in distress. This fits with Batson and
colleagues observation that most people describe themselves as feeling
distressed both for themselves and for the victim. What makes the
difference is how the two are balanced. Thus, it seems quite plausible
that the cognitive focus of the individual makes a substantial difference
to how she conceptualizes her distress. We may say that someone who
feels more distress for the victim than for herself is experiencing
empathic distress, but it is worth keeping in mind that such distress is
accompanied by a degree of personal distress.
(p.9) It is clear from the foregoing discussion that the literature on
empathy and empathy-related emotions is heavily slanted toward the
feelings of those in need: pain, distress, sadness, and so on. These are
typically thought to be the emotions most relevant to generating moral
thought and action in others. However, despite the dearth of research on
other types of empathy, most people assume that empathy is not an
emotion in its own right but a way of feeling emotions (Batson 2012,
Decety & Svetlova 2012, Haidt 2012, Maibom 2007, Prinz 2011a,b).
Recently, there has been an increase in the study of other empathic
emotions. Neuroscience studies famously found that empathic pain or
distress activates brain areas that overlap with the areas that are
activated when the person feels pain or distress for herself (Singer et al.
2004, Cheng et al. 2007). It has now been found that disgust (Wicker et
al. 2003; Jabbi, Bastiaansen, & Keysers 2008), fear (Gelder, Synder,
Greve, Gerard, & Hadjikhani. 2004), anger (de Greck et al. 2012), anxiety
(Prehn-Christensen, Wiesner, Bergman, Wolf, & Jansen2009), pleasure
(Jabbi, Swart, & Keysers 2007), embarrassment (Krach, Cohrs, de
Echeverria Loebell, Kircher, & Sommer 2011), and sadness (Harrison et
al. 2006) activate overlapping brain areas when the person is feeling the
emotion directly (or for themselves) and when they feel it for others (for
a review, see Bernhardt & Singer2012).3 In social psychology, there are
now a handful of studies on empathic embarrassment (Miller 1987;
Stocks, Lishner, Waits, & Downum 2011). Whether this is evidence of
empathy or emotional contagion is not always clear. Studies of so-called
empathic fear (Gelder, Snyder, Greve, Gerard, & Hadjikhani 2004) may
be better interpreted as finding fear contagion. It is associated with
strong activation of action-oriented areas, suggesting a defensive
orientation that one would not expect from a truly empathic emotion. It
stands to reason that the primary function of fear contagion would be
defensive and that, therefore, it should be hard to transform contagious
fear into empathic fear. It is, in fact, not at all clear that just any
emotion can be felt empathically, nor is it obvious that a contagious
emotion has the same probability of being transformed into an empathic
one no matter how it is caught, even if the subject is aware of its
source.

2. Routes to Empathy
So far I have considered (affective) empathy as a reaction to either the
distressing situation or the distressed subject regardless of how the
situation or the (p.10) subject is represented. But the way in which the
person accesses the others situation or emotional state is hardly
irrelevant to the subsequent empathic reaction. For instance, evidence
from neuroscience indicates that when we imagine someone
experiencing an emotion, we activate fewer brain networks that overlap
with the activation when we experience that emotion for ourselves, than
when we observe someone experience that emotion (Lamm, Decety, &
Singer 2011).
There are 3 main routes to affective empathy: witnessing the person in
the situation (perceptual route), believing that the person is in a certain
situation or is experiencing a certain emotion (inferential route), or
imaginatively engaging with her point of view (imaginative route)
(Maibom 2007). The latter is often known as perspective taking.
Hoffman talks of more routes, but from a conceptual standpoint, these
three are the most important ones. The first route is often thought to be
the most basic one. It is the oldest phylogenetically and ontogenetically,
and the one most widely shared with nonhuman animals according to
Preston and de Waal. The perception-action model of empathy is the one
most compatible with this route. Preston and de Waal say that: (2002,
4):
A Perception-Action Model of empathy specifically states that
attended perception of the objects state automatically activates the
subjects representations of the state, situation, and object, and that
activation of these representations automatically primes or
generates the associated autonomic and somatic responses, unless
inhibited.
Alvin Goldman has something similar in mind when he talks of low-
level mindreading, and some neuroscientists conceptualize this process
as subserved by mirror neurons (e.g., Iacoboni 2008). What is essential
to this route to empathy is that the empathizer has perceptual access to
information about the subjects welfare or emotional state. This form of
empathic relating to others has an immediacy to it and is not well
understood as essentially involving complex inferences. Instead, it is
thought that automatic imitation with afferent feedback is responsible
for this type of empathy or that mirror neurons are directly responsible
(e.g., Goldman 2006).
The role of mirror neurons in understanding other minds is heavily
debated. Mirror neurons are neurons that fire both when the agent
performs an action, such as grasping, and when she sees another person
performing the same action, that is, grasping. It might therefore be
thought that mirror neurons contribute to seeing actions as being
actions, not just meaningless gestures, and actions of particular kinds.
Action individuation, however, recruits areas of the brain that do not
contain mirror neurons as such, but (p.11) whose activation are
probabilistically related to the firing of such neurons (Umilit et al.
2001). As a result, people often talk of the mirror neuron system as
including not only mirror neurons but also neurons whose firing is
probabilistically related to that of mirror neurons. More expansively,
people talk of mirroring processes if the same brain areas are activated
when observing someone experiencing an emotion and when
experiencing the emotion oneself (e.g. Iacoboni 2008).4
Some argue that mirroring gives us a direct experiential grasp of the
minds of others (Gallese, Keysers, & Rizzolatti 2004), others that it
causes certain types of mindreading (Goldman 2009), and yet others
that the best mirroring can possibly do is create representations of an
agents motor-intentions but not her intentions for performing the
action (Jacob 2008). Goldman thinks mirroring contributes to ascribing
emotions to others (cognitive empathy). Others, such as Iacoboni
(2008), believe mirroring plays an essential role in truly understanding
how others feel. As we have seen, a number of affective empathic
emotionsfor instance pain, disgust, fear, anger, and sadnessengage
areas of the brain similar to those that are activated when the subject
experiences these emotion nonempathically, that is, directly or
personally. It is important to keep in mind, however, if human mirror
neurons are localized mainly in similar parts of the brain to those of the
macaque, namely, those concerned with visual processing, then they are
unlikely to play a significant role in most empathic reactions. So-called
mirroring does not imply the operation of mirror neurons.
The second route to empathy is through belief or knowledge. The
prototype of such situations are ones in which we have no direct
perceptual access to what the person is feeling or their situation. This
knowledge might be acquired by the testimony of others or by simple
inference. If we know Bill has lost his job, we infer that he is upset about
it. It is quite plausible that this route is less potent than the other two.
That is, it may be less likely to lead people to experience empathy or it
may invoke less strong a reaction. That is not to say that knowing that
someone is in pain, say, does not typically make people feel bad for that
person. In perspective-taking studies of empathy, the group that is given
no instructions to relate one way or another to the story of a person in
need still experiences empathy or sympathy for that person (Batson
2011).
(p.12) The third route is what is sometimes known as perspective
taking. Perspective taking involves the imagination. When we take
someones perspective, we imagine what it is like for her or what we
would feel were we in her situation. This is also known as simulation or
high-level mindreading. In Goldmans offline simulation account, we
imagine being in someone elses situationadjusting for differences in
beliefs, desires, and so on when neededsee what we would think,
feel, want, or intend to do, then ascribe those psychological states to the
person we are trying to understand (Goldman 1989). The seeing part of
this operation is the interesting one, and is central to offline accounts of
simulation. The idea is that our psychological system is a machine of
sorts that can operate on actual stimuli or on pretend stimuli. Our
imagination feeds this system with pretend stimuli, and then the system
processes these stimuli as it would actual stimuli and produces the same
results, only in pretend mode, as it would were it operating on actual
stimuli. For instance, if I imagine missing my flight by 5 minutes, I
imagine being more annoyed than if I imagine missing it by 20 minutes,
just as I would be in real life. Other accounts of simulation dont have
the same interpretation of decision making as an almost automated
system and rely more on the idea of effortful reasoning. In all cases,
however, the idea is that we use the same system to make decisions
ourselves and to predict others decisions, thoughts, and so on.
There are reasons to be hesitant about offline accounts. The first is the
concern that this type of simulation is merely a glorified form of
projection. We see the other as a fragment, or reduplication, of
ourselves (per Lipps1903a). The often voiced concerns that we are bad at
adjusting our psychological interior so as to be able to produce accurate
simulations are extensions of this consideration. There is a fair amount
of evidence that we can, in fact, empathize with and understand others
going through experiences that we have not gone through, and who are
significantly different from us (Buccino et al. 2004; Lamm, Meltzoff, &
Decety 2009). Some people take this to be reason to reject the idea that
mirror neurons are responsible for us understanding others intentions
(Goldman 2006). The second worry concerns our ability to engage our
psychological system by means of the imagination to create the desired
results. There is much evidence that we are not very good at forecasting
our reactions to counterfactual scenarios (Maibom forthcoming). This is
particularly true when those reactions involve, or are strongly influenced
by, visceral and affective states. We underestimate the effects of hunger
and thirst on our preferences (Read & van Leeuwen 1998, Van Boven &
Loewenstein 2003), overestimate our ability to withstand pain (e.g.,
Christensen-Szalanski 1984), ignore the effects of embarrassment on
our actions (Van Boven, Loewenstein, Welch, & Dunning 2012), and
generally imagine being more morally (p.13) upright (Latan & Darley
1970, Milgram 1963) and braver than we actually are (Woodzicka &
LaFrance 2001).5 This suggests that the imagination cannot recreate the
situation in the sort of detail that is required for us to have similar
reactions to such representations as we do to the perceptual
representations of the situation. Most likely, the imagination works with
more abstract, naked representations of events, which are highly useful
for a variety of purposes. But it cannot recreate the situation in such a
way as to simply recreate in us reactions that we would have to actually
being in the situation. Our perceptions trigger implicit memories about
such situations and create visceral and affective reactions, which are
hard to predict on the basis of more naked and sparse cognitive
representations of the situation. This suggests that there is an important
difference between empathizing in the situation and empathizing in the
imagination (Maibom forthcoming).
It is in general a mistake to think of empathic reactions as being largely
rote and the result of an automatic process. There is a rapidly expanding
literature on empathy modulation by cognitions, in part from the social
neurosciences. Jean Decety, Tania Singer, and Claus Lamm all insist that
empathy is never automatic, but always modulated by the relationship
between the empathizer and the subject, what the empathizer knows
about the subject, and so on (Decety 2011, Singer & Lamm 2009).
Empathy is affected by attention, attitude toward the subject, knowledge
about the experiences of the other, and so on. For instance, if a person is
asked to count the fingers of a subject who experiences painful stimuli
to the hand, there is no activation of the insular and cingulate cortices,
which are typically activated during empathic pain (Gu & Han 2007).
And we already know from Stotland and Batsons work that asking a
subject to pay attention to factors other than the persons feelings often
reduces empathy (Stotland 1969, Batson 1991). Another interesting thing
to note is that Batsons imagine-self versus imagine-other instruction
set was used with subjects in some experiments and differential
activation was found. Imagine-self instructions activated more areas
with overlap with the emotion felt by the subject than the imagine-other
did. The latter activated more theory of mind related areas (Lamm,
Batson, & Decety 2007).
Empathy depends heavily on the relationship between the empathizer
and the person empathized with. This is unlikely to come as a shock to
anybody. Hume, himself, maintained that we feel more for those close to
us in affection, time, and place (Hume 1739/1978). But there is now
relatively good experimental support of the idea. Friends are empathized
with more than strangers (Meyer et al. 2013), ingroup members more
than outgroup members (Tarrant, Dazeley, & Cottom 2009; Gutsel &
Inslicht 2010), and (p.14) those who are deemed to be fair are
empathized with more than self-serving, unfair persons (Singer et al.
2006).

3. Individual Differences
Just as empathy depends on the situation of the person, her
relationships to the other, her attention, and so on, there are significant
interpersonal differences in empathy. Some mental disorders are
characterized by deficient empathy, such as autism, psychopathy, and
narcissism, but even within the population at large, there are significant
differences in the extent to which people experience empathy. Nancy
Eisenberg, for instance, has documented empathy differences,
particularly in children. Some children are more prone to experience
empathy than others, who are more prone to experience personal
distress (Eisenberg et al. 1988, Eisenberg & Fabes 1990, Eisenberg &
Spinrad this volume). These differences correlate with differences in
prosocial behavior, social adjustment, popularity, and so on.
Psychopaths are famous for lacking empathy. It is one of the diagnostic
criteria of The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (Hare 2004).6 Criminal
psychopaths display a truly astounding disregard for the plight of their
victims, suggestive of impaired empathy (Hare 1993). Furthermore, their
justifications for why harmful actions are wrong involve welfare
justifications far below the norm (Blair 1995). A popular explanation of
their moral deficit is that it is due to their deficient (affective) empathy
or sympathy (Blair 1995, Nichols 2004).7
Physiological evidence has typically been taken to support the idea that
psychopaths lack empathy. Christopher Patrick and colleagues found
that psychopaths have reduced startle reflex to pictures of others in
distress compared to controls (Patrick, Cuthbert, & Lang, 1994). Startle
reflex, however, is a broad indicator of fear or anxiety more generally,
and thus is insufficient to show reduced empathy (and cannot, by its
nature, distinguish between empathy and personal distress). Patrick and
colleagues also found that psychopaths show the same abnormal startle
reflex in response to directly threatening images (Levenston, Patrick,
Bradley, & Lang 2000), which suggests that the deficit represents a
generalized disorder in the initiation of defensive action from an
orienting response. So psychopaths impaired negative reactions to
others distress may be due to the fact that they experience less fear,
anxiety, (p.15) or distress in response to seeing others in distress than
nonpsychopathic individuals. James Blair and colleagues found that
psychopaths have reduced palmar sweating to pictures of people in
distress compared to nonpsychopaths (Blair, Jones, Clark, & Smith
1997). But since skin conductance tests measure arousal only and not,
for instance, valence, the results can be interpreted in terms of deficient
empathy, sympathy, emotional contagion, compassion, pity, personal
distress, fear, shock, or stress. There is some reason to think that skin
conductance, like the startle reflex, captures personal distress and
anxiety/shock/stress more than empathy, sympathy, or their
compassionate cousins (e.g., Eisenberg, Fabes, Schaller, Miller, Carlo et
al. 1991). Many of the pictures used in skin conductance tests are
dramatic, picturing extreme distress (weeping, grieving) or scenes of
death and mutilation. The more distressed someone is, the more likely
witnesses are to feel personal distress, to the point where personal
distress is experienced more than empathic concern (Eisenberg et al.
1988, Hoffman 2000, Figley 2002).
By contrast to physiological tests, some more recent studies do not find
the expected negative correlation between affective empathy and
psychopathy. Although they did find that offenders were less empathic,
both cognitively and affectively, Gregor Domes and colleagues (2013)
found no difference between psychopathic and nonpsychopathic
inmates. David Lishner and colleagues report that people scoring high
on psychopathy do not differ from people scoring low in psychopathy in
emotional contagion or sympathy (empathic concern) (Lishner et al.
2012). If anything, high psychopathy scorers were more sympathetic
toward those in need. Another study with a college sample found that
people scoring high on coldheartedness were able to show perspective-
taking ability and show empathic concern as well as, or perhaps even
better than people who score low of PPI-SF-I8(Mullins-Nelson, Salekin,
& Leistico 2006, 139140). There are also important sex differences,
with female psychopaths appearing to have fewer affective empathy
deficits (Sutton, Vitale, & Newman 2002),9 even in studies that show
such empathy deficits in (p.16) children and adolescents with
psychopathic tendencies (Dadds et al. 2009, Isen, Raine, Baker, Dawson,
& Bezdjian 2010).10 Jean Decety, Laurie Skelly, and Kent Kiehl have
found mixed results when testing psychopaths on empathy measures
(Decety, Skelly, & Kiehl 2009). Though they did find decreased
activation in some brain areas in psychopaths compared to
nonpsychopaths (pariacqueductal gray, vmPFC, and OFC), they found
high activation in the anterior insular cortex (AIC), an area that has
most consistently been associated with emotional empathy. They
interpret the results as supporting the idea that AIC is more involved in
the cognitive aspect of empathy. However, Yawei Cheng, An-Yi Hung,
and Jean Decety (2012) show that adolescents high in callous-
unemotional traits process empathy-arousing stimuli abnormally,
particularly in the early stages, but that they nevertheless have intact
sensorimotor resonance, supporting the idea that that part of the
affective response to others in distress is intact in psychopaths.
Though psychopaths are assumed to have intact cognitive empathy,
some studies report distinct impairments, and a recent meta-analysis
shows very small but significant impairments in emotion recognition
(Wilson, Juodis & Porter 2011). Blair and colleagues found impairment
in recognition of facial expressions of fear and sadness in children with
psychopathic tendencies, but this finding has not been replicated with
adult psychopaths (Blair, Jones, Clark, & Smith 1997). Adult psychopaths
have difficulties only with the recognition of fear (Blair 2005, Iria &
Barbosa 2009, Marsh this volume). Some studies show sex offenders
also have deficits in the recognition of the facial expression of fear; they
often mistake it for surprise (Hudson et al. 1993). Empathy with fear
may be impaired in psychopaths due to their own fear deficit. Since they
experience diminished fear compared to nonpsychopaths, they often do
not experience much of a physiological reaction to imagining fearful
situations and their pain threshold is high, one would expect that their
understanding of, and ability to feel with and for people who are afraid,
would also be impaired. This certainly fits with the various accounts that
link perception of an emotion with the capacity to experience it
(Goldman & Sripada 2005, Preston & de Waal 2002), and is an option
explored further by Abigail Marsh (this volume). Of course, lack of fear
may itself cause a number of the deficits associated with psychopathy,
including the moral ones. It might, for instance, lead to an abnormal
pattern of decision-making.

(p.17) People with autism11 have traditionally been thought to lack

empathy as well, cognitive and affective. Simon Baron-Cohen makes
much of this fact (Baron-Cohen 2004 & 2012). Others, however, argue
that though people with autism may have impaired affective empathy,
this is only because of their deficient mindreading abilities; their ability
to feel concern for others in distress is relatively intact (Nichols 2001).
Children with autism do tend to pay less attention to others, spend less
time looking at their faces, and so on, with the result that they are less
likely to pick up on information about what others think or feel (Gopnik
& Welman 1994, Baron-Cohen 1995) and use this information to
modulate their behavior (Hobson & Hobson this volume). But other
studies do show robust distressed responses to others in distress (Blair
(1999a+b), Sigman, Kasari, Kwon, & Yirmiya 1992, Bacon, Fein, Morris,
Waterhouse, & Allen 1998, Jones, Happ, Gilbert, Burnett, &
Viding2010). Self-reports from autistic individuals like Temple Grandin
and Shaun Barron also demonstrate a true concern for the wellbeing of
others (Grandin & Barron 2005). Having said that, there are clear
differences in the empathic relating to others that is seen in people with
autism and what they call neurotypicals. Peter Hobson and Jessica
Hobson (this volume) argue that individuals with autism have a reduced
capacity to identify with the attitudes and experiences of others. In an
interesting departure from mainstream thought about empathy and
autism, they maintain that the most significant aspect of empathy is the
information that it yieldsnot the affective engagementabout others
subjective mental states. Because they lack such information, children
with autism experience less guilt about hurting others than normally
developing children. The issue is that they have problems understanding
that others exist as persons, that is, as being with inner lives.
One explanation of why people with autism have deficient empathy is
that their mirror neuron system is impaired, and this hypothesis is
supported by a number of studies (Dapretto, et al. 2006, Williams.
Whiten, Suddendorf, & Peretti 2001). But there are complications. First,
meta-reviews of studies of impaired mirror neuron functioning in people
with autism show conflicting results (Hamilton 2013). There is therefore
not, as of now, conclusive evidence that mirror neuron function is
reduced in autism. Second, adolescents high in unemotional-callous
traits do not have reduced mirror neuron functioning, at least not if mu
wave suppression is an accurate measure of such functioning (Cheng,
Hung, & Decety 2012). This suggests that intact mirror neuron
functioning is not a prerequisite for cognitive empathy, and that it is not
sufficient for affective empathy either. In brief, we need to know more
about mirror neurons in order to be able to link their activity to empathy
differences among groups of individuals.
(p.18) Two other populations are known for empathy deficits: people
with narcissism and people with borderline personality disorder. The
data from people with borderline personality disorder are very complex:
some demonstrate heightened sensitivity to the emotional expressions
of others (Lynch et al. 2006), some show reduced empathy to the same
phenomena (Hagenhof, Franzen, Gerstner, Koppe, & Sammer 2013),
some suggest deficient understanding of what others think or feel
(Harari, Shamay-Tsoori, Ravid, & Levkovitz-2010), and others show no
difference in empathic accuracy (Flury & Ickes 2006). Like people with
autism, it is thought that the affective empathy of people with borderline
personality is intact (Harari, Shamay-Tsoori, Ravid, & Levkovitz 2010;
New et al. 2012). One should note that the evidence suggests good
functioning on the relevant subscales of the IRI, which measure
sympathy (empathic concern) and personal distress. People with
borderline personality disorder may have a tendency to hypermentalize
(Sharp et al. 2013)that is, draw tenuous, wide-ranging conclusions on
limited groundsand their apparent deficits in affective empathy may be
due to their difficulties in regulating mood and anger. Narcissism,
though talked about much, is a condition most studied within the area of
psychoanalysis and psychotherapy (but see Ronningstam 1998). Some of
the key features of narcissism are lack of concern or empathy for others,
extreme self-absorption and self-aggrandisement. Many of these traits
are shared with psychopathy (Hart & Hare 1998).
Lastly, there is the issue of individual differences in empathy in the
nonpathological population. Not everyone has the same capacity to
empathize, nor is it the case that they exercise that capacity to the same
extent. Most famous, perhaps, is the supposed malefemale difference.
According to popular thought and many scientific writings, women are
simply more empathetic than men, perhaps because of their mothering
instinct. However, the actual data are much more equivocal (Maibom
2012b). The majority of studies find no sex/gender differences in
cognitive or affective empathy generally. Sometimes differences are
found along sex/gender lines; but rather than reflecting some deeper
differences between male or female individuals, such differences are
often a manifestation of the desire to live up to stereotypes. Women are
supposed to be more empathetic than men, and so they present
themselves as being so on questionnaires where it is clear that empathy,
broadly speaking, is measured (Eisenberg & Lennon 1983; Graham &
Ickes 1997; Ickes, Gesn, & Graham 2000). Perhaps men also represent
themselves as less empathetic on such measures. However, once it is
less clear what is measured, men and women typically score the same on
tests of dispositional empathy (see below). For instance, physiological
tests show few differences (Eisenberg & Lennon 1983), though there is
evidence of a small difference between males and females when it comes
to the tendency to experience personal distress (Skoe(p.19) 2010, Yang,
Decety, Lee, Chen, & Cheng. 2009). Highly publicized theories of male
female differences, such as Brizendines The Female Brain, Baron-
Cohens extreme male brain hypothesis of autism, and the fetal
testosterone hypothesis have all been discredited, along with most of the
hyped studied from neuroscience (Bluhm 2012, Fine 2010, Grossi & Fine
2012, Jordan-Young 2010, Jordan-Young & Rumiati 2012).
When it comes to empathy in the situation, there are typically few
differences also. Batson found almost no malefemale differences in
sympathy (empathetic concern) and personal distress in his many
studies on the empathy-altruism hypothesis (Batson 2011). Though
there may be some difference in motivation to think about others
thoughts and feelings favoring women, men are as accurate in their
understanding of others psychological states when they are offered
financial rewards (Klein & Hodges 2001). One might think that this is a
significant difference between the sexes, but the tendency is explicable
in other terms. Power makes a significant difference in interpersonal
understanding; those with more power tend to think less of the feelings
and other mental states of those with less power (Snodgrass 1985;
Galinski, Magee, Inesi, & Gruenfield 2006; Lammers, Gordjin, & Otten
2008). Thus, here may be more situational factors explaining what has
traditionally been taken to be internal characteristics of individuals (see
Bluhm & Maibom forthcoming). Tests of women and mens ability to
discern emotional states from facial expressions also show mixed
results; some show superiority in men for the recognition of certain
emotions, others in women (see Maibom 2012b for an overview). Tests
specifically of perspective-taking abilities have also failed to find
consistent and significant differences (Skoe2010, Derntl et al. 2010).
Eisenberg has studied individual differences in the tendency to
experience sympathy versus personal distress in children. She believes
that there are modest sex differences, favoring girls, in empathetic and
sympathetic responding overall, but suggests that this is likely to be due
to socialization (Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Sadovsky2006). Parental
sympathy is correlated with childrens sympathy in a sex-sensitive
pattern (boys sympathy is correlated positively with their fathers
sympathy and girls sympathy is positively correlated with their mothers
sympathy). There also seems to be some relation with disciplinary
practices, with parents who are exacting of their children, use reasoning
techniques and are not overly harsh or punitive raising more empathetic
children (for an overview, see Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Sadovsky 2006, and
Spinrad & Eisenberg, this volume). The tendency to experience
sympathy and to engage in certain types of prosocial behaviors appear to
be correlated in a relatively stable fashion over time, but this holds for
spontaneous sharing, not for spontaneous or compliant helping (see
Eisenberg 2005).
(p.20) Another important factor in shaping differences in empathy
between people is culture. Douglas Hollan, in his contribution to this
volume, outlines the importance of culture in forming what he calls
complex empathy, namely the thinking about and feeling for others
that go beyond basic recognitional capacities. Here marked differences
appear across cultures that are intricately linked to societal organization
(Hollan & Throop2011). The importance of cultural differences in
empathy has also been noted by people concerned with moral
orientation across cultures. The almost overriding concern for avoiding
harm and providing care found in the West and in Western ethical
theory is not accorded the same importance in at least some Eastern
cultures. Richard Shweder famously points to the importance of
community- and divinity-based considerations in Indian communities
(Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, & Park 1997). Haidt (2012) has gone
further and argued that many Americans, namely those that are
politically conservative, are just as concerned with a broad range of
moral transgressions as people in the South Asian cultures studied by
Shweder. What liberals tend to see as a lack of empathy is instead an
expression of empathy balanced against other central concerns.
Shweders and Haidts views both point to the importance of culture in
the use, expression, and importance of empathy, sympathy, and
compassion.
One problem with interpreting the empirical evidence concerning
empathy and empathy-related emotions is that there are a number of
measures, many of which differ significantly in what aspects of
empathy-related thought and emotion they focus on. So let us briefly
consider how empathy is measured in the empirical literature.

4. Measuring Affective Empathy

Measures of empathy test for either dispositional or situational
empathy. Dispositional empathy is understood as a personality or
character trait, and is measured almost exclusively using self-report
indices. Some dispositional indices measure cognitive empathy, for
instance Hogans Empathy Scale (Hogan 1969), whereas others test for
affective empathy, as does Bryants Index of Empathy (Bryant 1982).
Some researchers conceptualize empathy as a set of different, but closely
related emotional and cognitive capacities, and therefore construct more
complex indices, for example the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, which
measures empathy, sympathy, emotional contagion, perspective taking,
and fantasy (Davis 1983b). Situational empathy is the feeling of empathy
or sympathy in a particular situation. Historically, both dispositional and
situational empathy have been measured by self-reports, but because
self-report scales are not very reliable, researchers such as Eisenberg
and (p.21) Fabes code physiological responses and facial expressions
instead of, or in addition to, self-reports. Others think that these
measures are no better than self-reporting, and therefore continue to
rely on such measures (Batson 2011). There are, however, good reasons
to take self-reports with a grain of salt. Richard Nisbett and Timothy
Wilson (1977) demonstrate that people often have relatively little access
to their mental processes, but are likely to confabulate if pressured.
Empathy self-reporting has been found to be influenced by social
desirability, desire for positive self-evaluation, and stereotyping (e.g.,
Cialdini et al. 1987, Eisenberg & Lennon 1983). Above, we saw that many
sex differences were due to people attempting to live up to stereotypes,
but there are other curious results, such as the fact that violent sex
offenders have been found to score high on sympathy (empathic
concern) on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Curwen 2003). As it
stands, however, most tests of empathy rely on self-report measures.
Some of the better-known studies, such as those by Batson and
Eisenberg, are of situational sympathy contrasted with situational
personal distress. Typically, self-report indices are deployed and subjects
are asked to rate how much they feel of one emotion or another on a
Likert scale (e.g., Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, & Birch 1981;
Eisenberg et al. 1988). Batson often uses an index consisting of 28
adjectives, 10 characteristic of sympathy (empathetic concern), 10 of
personal distress, and 8 neutral ones. Subjects who report feeling
sympathetic, kind, compassionate, warm, softhearted, tender,
empathetic, concerned, moved, and touched are taken to feel sympathy
(empathic concern), whereas those who feel alarmed, bothered,
disturbed, upset, troubled, worried, anxious, uneasy, grieved, and
distressed are thought to experience personal distress (Batson 2011,
103).
Eisenberg has used physiological measures, most commonly heart rate,
skin conductance, startle reflex, and facial expressivity. Ordinary people
have increased skin conductance to images of people in distress and to
directly threatening images (Anieskiewicz 1979; Blair, Jones, Clark, &
Smith 1997). Skin conductance measures intensity of arousal, which is
normally interpreted as fear, anxiety, or stress. Eisenberg interprets
increased skin conductance to others in distress as personal distress
(and to a lesser extent sympathy), but all we can say with certainty is
that it reflects an aversive emotional reaction to others in distress,
whether it is personal distress, empathetic distress, stress, and so on.
(Eisenberg 2005). Something similar is true of the startle response.
Normal subjects usually show an increase in startle reflex when exposed
to pictures of people in distress (Patrick, Cuthbert, & Lang 1994). But
like increased skin conductance, the startle reflex is associated with fear
or anxiety. It might, therefore, measure contagious, personal, or
empathetic distress. Heart rate deceleration is taken to signify
sympathetic arousal because physiological (p.22) studies have
associated it with an intake of information and an outward focus of
attention (Cacioppo & Sandman 1978), and because it is a very common
response to sad or sympathy-inducing films or clips (Eisenberg et al.
1988, Eisenberg & Fabes 1990). Heart rate acceleration, on the other
hand, is typically interpreted as personal distress (Eisenberg et al. 1988),
but has also been found to correlate with: responses to pictures of
others distress (Liew et al. 2003), reactions to others being in fearful
situations (Eisenberg et al. 1988) and concern for others (Hastings,
Zahn-Waxler, Usher, Robinson, & Bridges 2000). Physiological
measures, therefore, are good indicators of emotional reactions, mostly
aversive, to others in distress. On their own, however, they are not very
precise indicators of whatemotions are experienced.
Eisenberg and colleagues have also pursued the use of facial expressions
as indicators of subjects empathy-related emotional experiences
(Eisenberg & Fabes 1990). These have been more successful with
children than with adults (Eisenberg et al. 1988). The evidence suggests
that facial expressions of sadness and sympathy are more common for
sympathy inductions than for distress inductions. Facial expressions of
distress, however, were equally common for either sympathy or distress
inductions. This suggests that sympathy and personal distress are often
felt together in response to others sad situations, just like the self-
report data from Batson indicates (Batson, Early, & Salvarini 1997;
Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Sadovsky 2006).
People who score high on dispositional measures are more likely to
experience empathy and sympathy in the situation, though the effect is
not as big as one might expect (Davis 1983a) and the type of scale used
makes a bigger difference than one would like (Eisenberg et al. 1989).
Part of the problem is disagreement about how to think of empathy, and
the consequent fact that typically many different emotional reactions to
others are being measured under the rubric empathy. Hogans
Empathy Scale (1969) measures mainly cognitive empathy. It has items
that tap into perspective taking, such as As a rule, I have little difficulty
in putting myself into other peoples shoes (1969, 310), but also items
that are hard to associate with any current view of empathy such as I
frequently undertake more than I can accomplish and It is the duty of
a citizen to support his country, right or wrong (reverse scored). The
Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis 1983b) and the Basic Empathy
Scale (Jolliffe & Farrington 2006) measure both cognitive and affective
empathy. But where the Basic Empathy Scale is applied as a whole, the
Interpersonal Reactivity Index has four subscalesempathic concern,
perspective taking, fantasy, and personal distressthat can be applied
separately. The Empathic Concern subscale of the Interpersonal
Reactivity Index seems to measure only sympathy, but the Basic
Empathy Scale and Bryants Index of Empathy (Bryant 1982) do not
include sympathetic items and do not distinguish between empathy,
emotional (p.23) contagion, or personal distress (e.g., I usually feel
calm when other people are scared [reverse scored], Jolliffe &
Farrington 2006, 593). The Questionnaire Measure of Emotional
Empathy (Mehrabian & Epstein 1972) is even less precise in its
measurement. This is particularly true of reverse scored items. If I score
high on I become more irritated than concerned when I see someone in
tears and I dont get upset just because a friend is acting upset, am I
lacking in empathy, sympathy, emotional contagion, or personal distress
(Mehrabian & Epstein 1972, 528)? Knowing the precise measure used is
therefore of crucial importance when evaluating research on so-called
dispositional affective empathy.

5. Behavioral Effects: Curbing Aggression and Promoting

Helping
One reason empathy has become as important a topic as it has in recent
years is that it supposedly encourages people to be nicer, more helpful,
more understanding, less aggressive, and so on. It is generally agreed
that only affective empathy or sympathy has these positive behavioral
effects, with cognitive empathy playing the role of focusing the affect
appropriately. The body of literature falls largely within two camps: that
concerned with aggression and violence, and that concerned with
helping and altruism.
It is widely assumed that there is a well-established connection between
aggression and low affective empathy or sympathy (Marshall, Marshall,
Serran, & OBrien 2009; Baron-Cohen 2012). However, in their 1988
meta-review, Paul Miller and Nancy Eisenberg found low to modest
correlations between low affective empathy or sympathy and aggressive,
antisocial, and externalizing behaviors, and only on dispositional
measures, not for facial affect, experimental inductions, or picture/story
measures. Many later studies find no such correlations (Cohen & Strayer
1996; Bush, Mullis, & Mullis 2000). Empathy, sympathy, and personal
distress have been found to be both positively (Curwen 2003) and
negatively associated with sex offending (Marshall et al. 2009), but
some studies find no effect (Geer, Estupinan, & Maguno-Mire 2000).12
Those who believe that sex offenders have empathy deficits disagree
about whether this deficit is general or specific to their victims (Varker,
Devilly, Ward, & Beech 2008). Sex offenders may only experience
deficits in empathizing with their own victim group (Fernandez,
Marshall, Lightbody, & OSullivan 1999). This suggests that it is not
lacking ability to empathize that facilitates aggression, but that offenders
inhibit their tendency to empathize when faced with(p.24) their
victims. Tony Ward and Russil Durrant engage with these issues in their
contribution to this volume. For other types of offending, there is
evidence both for and against the idea that empathy, sympathy, or
emotional contagion reduces aggression (Bush, Mullis, & Mullis 2000;
Jolliffe & Farrington 2004, 2007; Lardn, Melin, Holst, & Lngstrm
2006).
In noncriminal populations, the idea that empathy reduces aggression
has been investigated mostly in children and adolescents. Paul Hastings
and colleagues and Ari Kauklainen and colleagues found that low
affective empathy or emotional contagion correlates with behavior
problems in children (Hastings, Zahn-Waxler, Usher, Robinson, &
Bridges 2000; Kauklainen et al. 1999). But affective empathy and
bullying have been found to be both negatively and positively correlated,
and not at all (Jolliffe & Farrington 2006; Gini, Albiero, Benelli, & Alto
2007). Empathic emotions also appear to play a different role in men
and women. Gianluca Gini and colleagues found that sympathy was
negatively related to bullying only for boys (Gini et al. 2007). By
contrast, Darrick Jolliffe and David Farrington reported a negative
relation between empathy or emotional contagion and bullying among
girls only (Jolliffe & Farrington 2006). Jesse Loudin and colleagues have
evidence that affective empathy correlates negatively with relationship
aggression for male but not for not female college students (Loudin,
Loukas, & Robinson 2003). Jolliffe and Farrington (2007) found an
inverse relationship between empathy, particularly affective empathy,
and offending, but only for men. However, they did find that among
female offenders, women who commit violent crimes have lower
affective empathy than women who commit nonviolent ones (the same
pattern does not hold for male offenders). This discrepancy could be due
to the self-presentation issues that plague self-report measures, small
sample sizes for one sex, or it may be that aggression operates
differently in men and women.
Eisenberg and Miller (1987b) found that empathic responses, broadly
conceived, correlate significantly, though not greatly, with prosocial
behavior. The measure of empathy used matters greatly; sympathy
shows a relatively good correlation with helping behavior whereas
personal distress does not (Eisenberg, Losoya, & Spinrad 2009). Mark
Davis (1994) also reports positive and stable correlations between
situational and dispositional sympathy and prosocial behavior, although
the evidence for situational sympathy and prosocial behavior is stronger.
Against those who argue that all motivation is, ultimately speaking,
egoistic, Batson has presented evidence that sympathy-induced
motivation to help is not caused by the desire to reduce aversive arousal,
to avoid negative social evaluation, or to achieve rewards, such as
empathic joy (1991, 2011). This body of evidence is generally well
respected, though some still doubt that Batson has ruled out all
plausible egoistic alternatives, for instance that anticipated guilt, rather
than empathy, motivates helping (Davis 1994; Sober & Wilson 1998;
Stich, Doris, & Roedder 2010). Having said all that, if (p.25) the cost of
helping is high, sympathetically aroused subjects only help more than
controls if they have no easy way of escaping the situation where they
are exposed to the others distress (Batson, OQuinn, Fultz, Vanderplas,
& Isen 1983). This pattern is the typical one for subjects experiencing
more personal distress than sympathy in response to another in need
(Batson 1991, 2011). Batson thinks personal distress induced helping is
caused by egoistic motivation to reduce the distress. Eisenberg and
Fabes (1990) found that people who tend to experience personal distress
help others in need less than those who do not. However, personal
distress, as measured by increased heart rate, has been found to
correlate with concern for others and good emotional regulation
(Hastings, Zahn-Waxler, Usher, Robinson, & Bridges 2000; Liew et al.
2003.). It is worth noting, in this context, that psychopaths are deficient
in personal distress (Maibom forthcoming).
Although research on empathic responding concentrates on sympathy
and personal distress, more research is now conducted on how empathic
emotions affect behavior. As already discussed, neuroscientists have
found that the empathic variation of many emotions activates areas of
the brain that overlap with the areas activated during the (non-
empathic) experiencing of those emotions. Thus empathic pain activates
many of the same areas of the brain as pain does, and the same holds for
a range of other emotions (see above). Not much research has been done
on the behavioral effects of such emotions. Makiko Yamada and Jean
Decety (2009) suggest that since pain is experienced as unpleasant and
signals a threat in the environment, empathic pain is likely to activate
the threat-detection system and, therefore, to produce more of an
aversive reaction than a sympathetic one. De Gelder and colleagues
suggest that reacting with fear to the fear of others prepares the subject
for flight or other defensive action because it involves activation of fear-
related motor areas (de Gelder, Snyder, Greve, Gerard, & Hadjikhani
2004). We might therefore interpret the motivational effect as the
motivation to flee. What we are not able to determine with any certainty
is whether the fear, or the pain for that matter, should be thought of as a
contagious or an empathic emotion. Elsewhere, I suggest that the fact
that we are aware that we are feeling what we are feeling because
somebody else is feeling that way can modulate the motivation
associated with that emotion. For instance, we become motivated to do
something so that the subject is not in a dangerous position or is not in
pain (Maibom 2007). It is possible that certain emotions, such as pain or
fear, are never empathically felt given the high survival value of acting
directly on that emotion, fleeing the situation for instance. It is equally
possible that empathic fear typically coincides with direct fear, and that
the resultant motivation is the result of balancing personal safety versus
ones motivation to help the other person to safety.
The evidence for the motivational effects of empathic emotions is better
in social psychology. Here there is decent evidence that empathic anger
typically (p.26) felt when someone is mistreatedhas distinct
behavioral effects: it increases the desire to help the victim and punish
the perpetrator (Vitaglione & Barnett2003). Empathic anger typically co-
occurs with sympathy, but the two have contrasting effects on
motivation; empathic anger increases, whereas sympathy decreases, the
desire to punish the offending person. Batson has provided evidence that
in many cases what we call righteous anger or moral outrage is really
empathic anger (Batson et al. 2007, Batson, Chao, & Givens 2009).
There is also good evidence that people can be empathically
embarrassed, but it has not (yet) been found to be correlated with
prosocial motivation (Miller 1987; Stocks, Lishner, Waits, & Downum
2011).

6. The Evolution and Development of Empathy (in Three

Easy Paragraphs)
Most of the literature on the evolution of empathy or sympathy is really
about the evolution of altruism (Sober & Wilson 1998). Typically,
empathy or sympathy is assumed to be the vehicle of altruistic
motivation. Charles Darwin, himself, pointed to sympathy as one of the
most important moral sentiments, and he believed those sentiments
would motivate us to altruistic action (Darwin 2004/1871, Richards
2003).13 De Waal argues that the capacity to be vicariously affected by
the feelings of others is found widely in the animal kingdom and is
associated with prosocial and altruistic motivation. Kristin Andrews and
Lori Gruen explore this in their contribution to the volume, though they
focus more on understanding than on feeling. De Waal thinks that,
depending on the cognitive sophistication of the animal in question,
emotional contagion can morph into empathy or sympathy (de Waal
2006). De Waal hypothesizes that the capacity for vicarious distress
emerged with parental care. Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson link
parental care to altruistic motivation. Dan Batson (2009a) argues that
sympathy (empathic concern) is a development out of parental care or
concern also. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (2010), too, associates childrearing
practices with the evolution of empathy, only in her case she thinks it
was more important for the child to be able to understand the caregiver
than the other way around.14However, Hrdy is more concerned with
perspective taking and cognitive empathy than with affective empathy.
(p.27) As discussed above, the first sign of empathy-related responding
is reactive crying in infants. Despite such early signs of sensitivity to the
distress of others, most children do not show empathic responding to
others until 12 to 18 months of age (Eisenberg 2000). Overall, young
children are not very responsive to distress in their peers (Howes &
Farver 1987; Phinney, Feschbach, & Farver 1986). Empathic responding
to others seems to increase with age, and is related to the ability to take
anothers perspective (Zahn-Waxler, Cole, Welsh, & Fox1995; Robinson,
Zahn-Waxler, & Emde 2001). Ways of responding increase in
sophistication with increased self-understanding and the development
of other cognitive capacities (Hoffman 2000). Children who are more
empathetic or sympathetic are better socially adjusted and are more
popular than children who are less empathetic or sympathetic
(Eisenberg & Miller 1987a+b, Eisenberg & Fabes 1990). Aggressive
tendencies also appear to be modulated somewhat by empathy or
sympathy, but not until around age 6 (Gill & Calkins 2003, Hastings,
Zahn-Waxler, Usher, Robinson, Bridges 2000). Prosocial behaviors in
response to others in distress appear before (Hoffman 2000).15
As we will see in the next section, empathy is often related to morality.
The literature on child development often posits a solid link between
empathy and moral responding. Some people simply assume that
empathy is, itself, a moral emotion and that, therefore, the capacity for
empathy is required for full moral development (Tangney & Dearing
2002). Others see empathic responding as being a necessary precursor
to other moral emotions (Blair 1995, Hoffman 2000). For instance,
Hoffman (2000) thinks of empathy-induced transgression guilt as
central to moral development. Jesse Prinz (2011a, 2011b) has objected
that empathy is not necessary for moral development, and that sadness
produced by parental punishment and love withdrawal plays a more
important role in moral development. But whether or not empathy is
necessary for all kinds of moral development, it certainly seems to play
an important role in such development.

7. Empathy and Morality

Historically, so-called sympathy played an important role in Adam
Smiths (1759/1976) and David Humes (1777/1975) moral philosophies.
Both talked of the fellow feeling by which we feel the afflictions of
others by communication. We may therefore suppose that what they
referred to as sympathy is what we have hitherto described as affective
empathy. For Hume, empathy lies at (p.28) the foundation of our
sentiments of approbation and disapprobation, which are moral
sentiments. When we see someone be kind to someone else, for
instance, we tend to feel approbation toward that person. If we were
simply disinterested observers of human affairs, it is hard to explain why
we should feel such approbation. If, on the other hand, we suppose that
we are by nature inclined to feel with our fellow human beingsto
experience pain or pleasure when they dowe can see why kindness
toward others should affect us. The same is true of feelings of
disapprobation, only here we disapprove of agents acting in ways that
are disadvantageous or harmful to someone else. For instance, if we see
one man hit another, we typically feel a sense of disapprobation. Again,
the way to understand this is that we are not indifferent to the suffering
of the man who is hit. His pain is communicated to us through the
fellow feeling that binds humankind together, and we therefore
disapprove of the person who is causing him pain.
Approbation and disapprobation are ways to talk of many types of
emotions that we experience in response to others. My disapprobation
may consist in moral outrage, resentment, or pity, and admiration or
empathic joy would be forms of approbation. Depending on the
interpretation of Hume, judgments of right and wrong simplyare
feelings of approbation or disapprobation, describe such feelings, or
express them. Some also believe that bona fide moral beliefs could be
associated with such sentiments (see Cohon 2010). Today people would
say that Hume was an internalist about moral judgment. Internalism
holds that it is the essence of judgments of right and wrong or good and
bad that when one makes them, one is thereby motivated to act on them
(Smith 1994). Hume evidently thought something like this, and since he
also thought that only the passions could motivate, moral judgments
had to be passions, or descriptions or expression of passions. An
emotion like empathic distress, then, does not directly give rise to a
moral judgment, but the ability to empathize with others distress is the
foundation for such emotions as moral outrage at the person who
caused their distress, which either is or is expressed/described by the
corresponding moral judgment.
One concern with a view of moral judgments based ultimately on
empathy is that empathy is fragile and biased. For instance, we feel more
empathy for those close to us spatially, temporally, and affectionately.
Batson, Hoffman, and Ugazio, Majdandi, and Lamm all discuss the
importance of such limits to empathys or sympathys moral status (this
volume). Hume, himself, thought that moral judgments must ultimately
be based in empathy, but from a common point of view. By adopting
such a point of view, we overcome at least some of the limitations
inherent in empathy. Some, like Smith, talk of an ideal observer,
meaning an observer who is not affected by the biases inherent in an
individual point of view (Smith 1759/1976). Antti Kauppinen
explores(p.29) these issues in more detail here in an attempt to
overcome some of the more recent criticisms of the idea that empathy is
central to morality. Another way of dealing with the parochialism of
empathy is explored by Richard Garrett and George Graham (this
volume), who stress the potential of empathy to be experienced for all
persons.
Broadly Humean (or Smithean) views of morality have become very
popular in recent decades, primarily because of renewed interest in
affect and emotion (Damasio 1994, LeDoux 1998) and an increasing
skepticism about the role of reason in moral judgment (Haidt 2001,
Prinz 2009). But few accounts accord empathy the fundamental role in
moral orientation toward others that Hume and Smith did. One that
comes close is James Blairs Violence Inhibition Mechanism account of
moral development (Blair 1995). Building on Seymour Feshbachs
theory of aggression inhibition and similar ideas from the study of
animal behavior (Feschbach 1964, Lorenz 1966), Blair suggests that the
disposition to have an aversive emotional response to others distress is
a developmentally necessary precursor to the development of moral
emotions, the ability to see some actions as being morally right or wrong
(make criterial moral judgments), and aggression inhibition. The
Violence Inhibition Mechanism is either an innately specified
structure or the result of early socialization aimed at making the child
retreat from distress signals in others. This mechanism responds to
distress in others by initiating withdrawal from the source of the distress
signal. Following Mandler (1984), Blair suggests that interruption of
ongoing activities produces an aversive emotional response, which with
time is interpreted as a moral emotion, that is, guilt, remorse, pang of
conscience, sympathy, or empathy. Blair understands empathy as a
response to imagined, rather than perceived, distress in others, and
therefore as requiring rather mature cognitive and perspective-taking
capacities. The moral emotions are more direct products of the Violence
Inhibition Mechanism and do not require as much cognitive mediation.
The child eventually learns to associate the negative emotional response
produced by the operation of this mechanism with situations, actions,
and events in such a way that she becomes less violent, comes to see
certain actions as moral or immoral, and acts more empathetically
toward others.
A malfunctioning Violence Inhibition Mechanism has significant
downstream effects on individuals, particularly on their moral
functioning. This is particularly clear in the case of psychopaths, Blair
thinks. Psychopaths have deficient moral emotions, impaired empathic
responses to others, little moral understanding, and few qualms about
harming others. Though Blair no longer talks of a Violence Inhibition
Mechanism, his basic idea remains the same. The defective neural
wiring associated with the emotional responses characteristic of
empathy plays a central role in psychopaths moral deficit (Blair,
Mitchell, & Blair 2005).
(p.30) Whereas the tendency to feel what others are feeling because
they are feeling it was foundational to Humes and Smiths view of
morality, for Blair it is the tendency to retreat from others in distress
combined with the consequent activation of the autonomous nervous
system that is foundational to moral development and responding.
Socialization and interpretation play a major role in the development of
moral emotions, and empathy is not taken to be a primitive response to
others, but a learned and heavily cognitively elaborated one. Where Blair
puts emotions at the center of moral development, it is notable that they
are not basic to his picture; the withdrawal response is. Probably Blair is
influenced by the behaviorist tradition of ethology here, and is trying to
avoid getting embroiled in discussions about animal emotionality.
Recent results from animal studiessome of which Andrews and Gruen
discuss in their contributionsuggest that a more robust interpretation
of affective capacities and emotional resonance is reasonable in many
nonhuman animals. Another way in which Blair stands out is that his
foundational emotional reaction is an aversive reaction to others
accompanied by, or subsequent upon, a withdrawal response. This is
best interpreted as personal distress, an emotion that most of the
empathy/sympathy literature agree is not morally useful. Eisenberg, for
instance, has data that suggests that the tendency to feel personal
distress correlates positively with behavior problems in boys (Fabes et
al. 1994). But whereas much of the literature on the behavioral effects of
empathy or sympathy is focused on helping behavior, Blairs primary
concern is inhibition of aggression. And there is some reason to think
that the psychopaths who have less impaired empathy, sympathy, or
personal distress are more violent than the callous-unemotional types.16
Shaun Nichols also puts an empathetic response to others at the center
of morality. He has argued that the operation of a so-called Concern
Mechanism is central for the capacity to make what he calls core moral
judgments (Nichols 2004). They constitute a central class of moral
judgments that proscribe harm to others and that are typically shared
cross-culturally, though there is, of course, significant variation. The
capacity to make core moral judgments consist in the ability to
recognize that harm-based violations are very serious, authority
independent, generalizable and that the actions are wrong because of
welfare considerations (2004, 7). Judgments that harmful actions
(p.31) are wrong are the result of two factors: the operation of the
Concern Mechanism and the fact that the action is proscribed by a norm.
Nichols uses the term concern to denote either sympathy or
empathetic distress (which he calls second-order contagious distress), or
both.
The Concern Mechanism is similar to Blairs Violence Inhibition
Mechanism. Like it, the Concern Mechanism responds to distress in
others. But unlike the Violence Inhibition Mechanism, whose function it
is to interrupt ongoing behavior (retreat), the function of this
mechanism appears to be to produce altruistic behavior. Nichols leans
heavily on experimental evidence for altruistic behavior, particularly
that produced by Batson. This leads to the somewhat curious fact that
though the main function of the Concern Mechanism is to lend the
affective oomph to judgments that harm is wrongmake them
categoricalits output is primarily conceptualized in terms of helping
behavior (approach).
It stands to reason that the desire to help someone who has been
harmed is connected to an appreciation that harming others is wrong.
But, as Hoffman (2000) points out, there is an important difference
between what we might call bystander empathy and empathy with ones
own victims. Furthermore, Batsons examples of people in need are
almost exclusively of people who are victims of misfortune, not victims
of violence.17 Relying on the data that sympathy leads to altruistic
motivation may not, therefore, serve Nichols as well as he thinks. If the
concern is to explain why we are hesitant to harm others, Blairs focus
on retreat and aversive emotional reactions to distress seems more
apposite (personal distress, perhaps empathic distress).18 Sympathy-
induced altruism seems better suited to ground the sense of obligation
to help those in need. Of course, most of Batsons cases are typically not
of a severity so that people think they are required to help, merely that it
would be a good thing to help. Moral philosophers would call such
actions supererogatory (i.e., morally good), but not morally required.
(p.32) Like Blair, Nichols holds malfunction of the mechanism he
proposes responsible for psychopaths moral deficits. According to
Nichols, psychopaths can say and think things like it is wrong to harm
others, but these acts are unaccompanied by (actual or potential)
empathic reactions. Without the capacity to experience concern for the
suffering of others, one cannot make true moral judgments.
Furthermore, one will not be properly motivated by harm norms either.
Concern imbues harm norms with categorical oomph and with their
motivational component. Nichols view, then, is a form of internalism
about moral judgment.19
Whereas both Blair and Nichols see their proposals as dealing with
morality as a whole or, at least, with the core of morality, other people
maintain that empathy-related emotions are very relevant to morality,
but only to parts of it. Jonathan Haidt (2012) maintains that compassion
is what he calls the characteristic emotion of one of his moral
foundations. He thinks of moral judgment as the result of the operation
of innately specified modules concerned with different aspects of
communal life. One such module or foundation concerns care/harm.
When triggered by someone in distress or need, it typically produces
compassion.20 The circumstances under which such a module operates
are subject to substantial cultural modification, although its
characteristic concerns are innate. Haidts conceptualization of
compassion is compatible with what we have here described as
sympathy. For Haidt, moral judgments are typically the culmination of
an intuitive processultimately of the operation of a moral foundations
moduleand emotions are a form of intuition. To put things differently,
a moral judgment that it is wrong to harm another derives from the
operation of a harm/care module, which typically produces an emotional
reaction associated with compassion/sympathy/concern.
Michael Slote (2010) elaborates his ethics of care by placing empathy at
the center of moral approval and disapproval. But where Hume seemed
to think of moral emotions of approbation and disapprobation springing
from the more basic tendency to feel what others feel, Slote regards
empathy as playing a more direct role in moral judgment. The chill of
moral disapproval and the warmth of moral approval are both derived
from an empathetic reaction to agents. The person toward whom
approval or disapproval is felt is the agent, note, not the patient. This
makes it harder to understand how empathy is supposed to play the role
proposed by Slote since an agent who mistreats another or performs
some other immoral action rarely feels a chill while doing so (cf.
DArms (p.33) 2011). Typically, empathy is thought to be foundational
to morality because it makes us care for victims.
Stephen Darwall (1998) argues that sympathy is foundational to our
notion of a persons good or wellbeing, including our own. Neither
reason, nor self-interest requires us to be concerned for our own good or
wellbeing, let alone for that of others. When we sympathize with
someone, however, we are concerned for the wellbeing of that person for
her own sake. That is, we are negatively affected by bad things
happening to her and positively by good things. And we are typically
motivated by those sentiments. But this capacity to be concerned for
someone for her sake is special to sympathy and helps form the
foundational concept of ethics, namely that of the good of a person.
In Empathy and Moral Development Hoffman says: For me, empathy
is the spark of human concern for others, the glue that makes social life
possible (2000, 3). In brief, our primitive, automatic, and involuntary
capacity for (affective) empathy is evoked by seeing others harmed or
hurt. With increasing cognitive sophistication empathy can be evoked by
thinking of or imagining victims or their situations. The first germ of
moral judgment lies in this basic emotional reactivity to what is done to
others. Using appropriate disciplinary tactics, parents help their children
form associations between transgressions, empathic distress, and guilt.
Resultant guilt-scripts are important moral regulators of behavior.
Empathy by itself, however, is not a moral motive. Empathy with the
right socialization forms the basis for the development of moral motives,
understood as motives that have an obligatory quality, are experienced
as self-originated, dispose one to feel guilt at contemplating harming
others, and make one consider others needs even when they conflict
with ones own (2000, 9). While empathic and sympathetic distress play
a large role in moral development, Hoffman also accords a significant
role to empathic anger felt toward transgressors. Eisenberg, too, thinks
that empathic respondingprimarily sympathyplays an important role
in moral development, as evidenced by its positive relation to prosocial
behaviors and moral judgmentsespecially care-related moral
judgmentsand its negative relation to aggression (e.g.,
Eisenberg2005). As others, however, she cautions that perspective
taking and moral reasoning also play important roles in such
development. For both Hoffman and Eisenberg, but particularly for
Eisenberg, regulation of the empathy-related response is crucial. The
ideal response from a moral perspective falls in the mean; too little leads
to absence of concern for others, whereas too much leads to self-
centered distress.
The idea that empathy is central to the ability to make at least some
moral judgments is scattered across the literature in less worked out
forms. For instance, the literature on the moral and legal responsibility
of psychopaths often makes references to deficient affective (Deigh
1995) or cognitive (p.34) empathy (Levy2007). One sees versions of the
following argument (Glannon 1997, Mei-Tal 2004):
1. Empathy is necessary for providing depth to, or true
understanding of, moral judgment.
2. Psychopaths lack empathy.
3. Therefore psychopaths cannot make true moral judgments
There are various reasons to be skeptical about the argument as it stands
(Maibom 2008). First, not all criminal psychopaths lack empathy (as we
saw above). Second, even in Blairs original (2005) study some
psychopaths gave welfare justifications of why it is wrong to harm
others, and later studies found no reduced tendency for psychopaths to
make such justifications (Dolan & Fullam 2010). Third, psychopaths
perform fine on certain types of moral judgments (Glen, Iyer, Graham,
Koleva, & Haidt 2009; Aharoni, Atenenko, & Kiehl 2011). Finally, this
line of reasoning ignores other explanations for psychopaths deficient
morality, namely that they have substantial, albeit subtle, reasoning and
decision making deficits (Maibom 2005).
So far, we have mainly considered how empathy-related emotions are
connected with moral judgment. Since many of the views discussed also
hold internalism about moral judgment, empathy is thereby involved in
moral motivation also. Indeed, it is often thought that it is the
implication of empathy that makes the moral judgments motivational,
because (only) emotions motivate. However, some accounts focus more
on empathys motivational contribution than on its contribution to
criterial moral judgment. Empathy or empathy-related emotions are
often tied to morality by means of their connection to altruism. Many
think that sympathy or empathy produce altruistic motivation. Altruistic
motivation is an ultimate desire, that is, a desire that is not itself based
on another desire, for the good of another (Sober & Wilson 1998, Batson
2011). Altruism seems to be a moral feature par excellence.
Traditionally, most accounts concerned with how to account for morality
from an evolutionary perspective have focused on the evolution of
altruism. One of Darwins concerns about his theory of evolution by
natural selection was whether it was able to explain the existence in
humans of a moral sense, which, at least in part, compels people to act
altruistically or for the good of the group (Darwin2004/1871). And so,
though the connection between altruism and morality is rarely made
explicit, it is implicit in many accounts (Trivers 1971). And there is little
reason to deny that at least some altruistic actions are moral and that at
least some moral norms require us to act altruistically. It is important to
be aware, however, that altruistic motivation or action is not the same as
moral motivation or action. No one is clearer about this than Batson
(p.35) who, in his contribution, warns against any confusion of the two
and reflects further on their connection.

8. Skepticisms, or: Against Empathy

Recently, a number of people have voiced concern that the importance
of empathy-related emotions to morality has been greatly exaggerated.
Most famous, perhaps, is Jesse Prinzs insistence that not only is
empathy not necessary for moral judgment, moral motivation, or moral
development, but it is also not an emotion that should be cultivated to
enhance peoples moral sensibilities (Prinz 2011a, 2011b). His view is
not that emotions are not central to moral judgment, for he argues that
they are constitutive of such judgments. His skepticism concerns the
role of empathic emotions. Prinz points to judgments that victimless
crimes, such as necrophilia, consensual sibling incest, or the desecration
of someones grave with no living relatives, are wrong. Such judgments,
he says, are unlikely to be constituted by empathic responses in any
interesting sense. But where one might find this convincing enough, one
might still believe that judgments concerning the wrongness of harming
others necessarily or essentially involve empathic emotions. The idea is
certainly compelling. Is it not evident that our ability to anticipate the
suffering of the other, and therefore our own suffering, is essential to
recognizing the wrongness of causing harm? Furthermore, as Blair and
Nichols maintain, welfare justifications seem centrally connected to
moral judgments of the wrongness of harm.
It should be noted that the argument for empathy being in some sense
essential to moral judgment only seems compelling to people of a
nonrationalist persuasion, and rationalism has a long history in ethics.
The most famous rationalist is, perhaps, Immanual Kant. Kant argued
that moral judgments are grounded in pure practical reason and that the
prototype of an individual moral judgment is the culmination of a
process of (practical) reason (Kant 1785/1993). For a variety of reasons,
some better than others, the Kantian view has gone out of fashion
among most empirically oriented moral psychologists and philosophers.
However, Jeanette Kennett (2002) argues that people with autism have
intact reverence for reason and this is why they do not engage in the
sort of immoral behavior we see in other people lacking in empathy,
such as psychopaths, even though they too have empathy deficits.
Respect for reason, therefore, grounds their moral judgments that
harming others is wrong. The most common objection to Kennett is that
people with autism are most impaired in the cognitive aspect of empathy
and are relatively spared in their capacity to experience contagious
emotions and distress in response to the distress of others (e.g., Blair
1996 & 1999a, Sigman, Kasari, Kwon, & (p.36) Yirmiya 1992; Bacon,
Fein, Morris, Waterhouse, & Allen 1998). The main stumbling block
people with autism face when it comes to empathizing with others is
their deficient ability to recognize their emotions. By contrast, the
typical diagnosis of psychopathy is that they can recognize such
emotions in others, but they do not empathize with them (but see Marsh
in this volume for a different take). Together this suggests that the intact
affective capacities of people with autism are responsible for their
relatively intact moral judgments and comportment, not reverence for
reason.
Although McGeer (2008) thinks that people with autism have relatively
intact emotional resonant capacities, she nevertheless thinks there is
something to Kennetts analysis of autistic morality as one dominated by
rules, structures, and so on. She gives this preoccupation a
sentimentalist reading, however, and argues that what is characteristic
of autism is that individuals have intact one out of three characteristic
moral concerns, namely concern with cosmic structure and cosmic
position (McGeer 2008, 251). Whether she believes that such concern
give rise to a characteristic range of moral judgments and not others is
not clear. The obvious interpretation of her, however, is that concern for
the wellbeing of othersmost likely embodied in empathy and sympathy
forms an essential element of ordinary moral judgments related to
harm. If that is right, people with autism may judge that harming others
is wrong, but such judgments have a different basis, presumably in more
absolute principles.
Others have found the idea that cosmic structures, principles, or laws
ground harm norms generally more compelling. Justifications of the
Hindu and Buddhist principle of nonviolence, ahimsa, vary greatly.
However, Mahatma Gandhi argued that we should obey, or submit to,
this higher law, which he called the law of humanity (Gandhi 1991,
238). One reason Gandhi appealed to this principle was most likely to
persuade his followers of satyagraha, the idea of nonviolent resistance
against oppressors, enemies, and so on. It is, of course, notoriously hard
to empathize with those with whom we are in conflict. Conflict, desire,
self-interest, hatred, and anger all either reduce or inhibit a persons
tendency to empathize or sympathize with another. Recall that many sex
offenders have intact empathy except for their victim group. Many refuse
to consider the suffering of nonhuman animals because of their
commitment to eating animal flesh. In both cases, desire for what
another can offer us blocks any empathetic response we might otherwise
have. Worse, when we are in conflict with others we typically want to
harm them and rarely sympathize or feel for them. In such cases, what
grounds our judgment that it is wrong to harm others, let alone
motivates us not to?
Whereas Gandhi suggested adherence to the law of ahimsa, popular
culture often voices a concern that harming others can lead to loss of
ones integrity, (p.37) ones principles, ones innocence, ones soul,
ones sanity, or cause one to move over to the dark side (Miami Vice,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars, and Angel). While one might
argue that welfare considerations are at play, it is not the welfare of the
other that is in question. It is largely ignored, if considered at all. The
focus is on the self, but not in a self-interested way incompatible with
morality. People dont refer to punishment as a deterrent. They refer to
the integrity of the agent, to his or hermoral integrity, to her purity,
and to the difficulty of living with the knowledge of having taken
anothers life. Nevertheless, some might object that all such reasons are,
at bottom, selfish and therefore incapable of counting as moral motives
or moral reasons. But, as Bernard Williams has so forcefully argued, it is
hard to see how it could be immoral or morally self-indulgent not to
want to perpetrate evil. Williams has in mind the typical
consequentialist scenarios where we are faced with the choice of killing
the one to save the many. If we do nothing, many will die, but not by our
hand. There is nothing morally questionable, Williams insists, about
refusing to kill the one because one does not want to be a murderer
(Williams 1981b).
The concern not to do evil, to be a good person, and so on is also at the
forefront of the moral landscape of Star Wars, which is partly based on
Joseph Campbells reflections on the myth of the heros journey across
cultures (Campbell 1949). It is not empathy or sympathy that informs
Luke Skywalkers understanding that killing the Emperor would be
morally wrong; it is not concern for the Emperors welfare, but fear of
moving to the Dark Side. The Dark Side requires little explanation; it is
evident that it is bad in itself. However, it is also portrayed as
annihilating choice and autonomy. Luke understands that he is in
danger of losing his soul or, perhaps, his integrity. To quarrel with the
moral quality of such considerations seems to me to be churlish.
Returning for a moment to the idea of cosmic law and structure, another
obvious alternative to empathy grounding harm norms is respect or
concern for Gods will, Gods commands. Many people take themselves
to believe that the moral wrongness and rightness of many actions are
the result of the commands of God. However, Larry Nucci famously
found that children from very religious backgrounds do not think that
moral norms, including harm norms, can be altered by God. Even if God
permitted hitting, it would still be wrong to do so (Nucci 1986, Nucci &
Turiel 1993). In other words, Gods will is a red herring when it comes to
morality.
One should be hesitant to draw wide-ranging conclusions from these
studies. First, the relation between the good and the will of gods is a very
old and thorny problem dating back at least as far as Plato, who
discussed it in theEuthyphro. Is what is good good merely because God
wills is, or does God (p.38) will it because it is good?21 It is far from
certain that ordinary individualsparticularly children and adolescents
grasp the problematic raised by Nuccis questions. It is, for instance,
quite possible that the adolescents think it inconceivable that God would
allow hitting others (innocent others). This suspicion is reinforced by
the observation that subjects did not accept that the dictates of religious
authority would be discrepant with their own moral evaluations (Nucci
& Turiel 1993, 1490).
Second, more recent evidence suggests that religious people differ from
nonreligious individuals in their moral reasoning style. The religious
people that Lene Arnett Jensen studied did not justify harm norms in
terms of welfare, but in terms of Gods command or Gods authority
(Jensen 1997). She argues that this shows that a divinity-based moral
orientation is fundamentally different from a nonreligious autonomy-
based one. Furthermore, Jared Piazza (2012) found that by comparison
to nonreligious people, religious ones prefer rule-based moral
arguments, which simply reaffirm the wrongness of that class of action
(it is wrong to lie), over consequentialist moral arguments, which
make reference to the subjects welfare (she could get fired).
Whether all these considerations concern moral judgment particularly
or also moral motivation I leave to the reader to determine. Suffice it to
say that people also have concerns about the motivational power of
empathy when it comes to moral judgments (where they understand the
two to be separable). Batson, for instance, has pointed out that there are
sometimes conflicts between empathy-induced altruistic motivation and
moral motivation (see this volume). Others, such as Prinz, have argued
that other moral emotions, such as moral indignation, are often more
powerful in motivating the right action. But few people argue that
empathy, on its own, is necessary for moral judgment or motivation.
And once we restrict our focus to the role of empathy in motivating
harm norms, it is hard to be too dismissive. As we have seen, when we
countenance harming our enemy, empathy may be a relatively weak
motivator. There are other considerations that can give substance to our
judgments that it is wrong to harm, and no doubt other things that can
motivate us not to do so. However, it seems highly plausible that in
many, if not most, casesparticularly when we consider others harmed
empathy plays a central role in our judgments (and motivation).
Without the influence of empathy-related affect, morality might be
unrecognizable to us. Many contributors to this volume make
suggestions about how empathy or sympathy help form our moral
outlook or shape our moral motivations without thereby adhering to
(p.39) anything as strict as the idea that without empathy we would
have neither moral judgment nor moral motivation.

9. Future Directions in the Exploration of Empathys Role

in Morality
I have focused on harm norms in the preceding section for two reasons.
First, most people who argue that empathy, sympathy, compassion, or
other empathy-related emotions play an essential role in moral
judgment focus on judgments concerning the wrongness of harming
others (Nichols 2004, Blair 1995). Second, empathy is most charitably
viewed as relating to victims, not to victimless crimes. One problem that
researchers working in moral psychology are facing is the considerable
variation in what is regarded as moral. Some moral philosophers have
a very narrow notion of the moral, and many academics find it hard to
accept that purity norms should be considered as at all relevant to
morality. Like Haidt points out in his acute analysis of the difference
between liberals and conservatives in the United States, liberals tend to
think of only harms, rights, and justice norms as properly moral.
Broader conceptions of morality, however, accept that norms pertaining
to authority, purity, and group organization also belong to the moral
realm at least when we conceive of this descriptively (Haidt 2012).22
The domain of what we may call private morality has, as a matter of
historical fact, been largely ignored in the ethical tradtion. It is
commonly assumed that what happens within the householdshort of
sexual and physical abuseis outside the realm of legality, if not outside
that of morality. When moral issues are discussed, the issues typically
concern how we should act toward relative strangers and what we might
call gross moral norms: murder, injustice, and abuse of various kinds.
But most of our important moral decisions are decisions about how to
act toward those with whom we have close personal relationships, and it
is here that empathy-related emotions may have their greatest
importance (Maibom 2010). The Ethics of Care tradition has helped
bring this neglected area into focus (e.g., Gilligan 1982, Koehn 1998),
and it is within this tradition that we find one of the more sustained
defenses of the importance of empathy for morality (Slote 2007). It is
also abundantly clear from the work of Eisenberg and colleagues that
the good social relationships (p.40) that come from empathy-related
responding to others are invaluable for the wellbeing of the individual
and those around her (e.g., Eisenberg 2005). One does not need to
subscribe to this ethical outlook in order to see that empathy and
sympathy may play a tremendously important role in acting ethically
toward those with whom we have closer personal relationships.
Feminists at least have questioned views of morality that are narrowly
focused on public life, but leave out close personal relationships as
largely irrelevant to morals (Gilligan 1982, Noddings 1984).
Another role for empathy-related emotions is highlighted by the
carefully balanced approaches of Spinrad and Eisenberg as well as
Kauppinen in this volume. It is tempting think of empathy as a relatively
rote factor producing certain responses in subjects largely in isolation
from other characteristics of the subject. But what these authors point to
is the importance of so-called emotional regulation. Other authors,
too, have pointed to the importance of self-regulation in aggression
inhibition. For instance, Roy Baumeister is a great proponent of the old-
fashioned idea of self-control or self-regulation. With colleagues, he has
conducted a variety of studies showing the effects of self-regulation on
aggression inhibition (Stucke & Baumeister 2006). With this in mind,
one might find that empathy plays an important role in morality, but
that its role is modified by a host of factors that cannot be ignored in a
moral psychology.
What we are in need of, it seems, are more nuanced explorations of the
exact role empathy-related emotions play in regulating human
relationships. This volume contributes to this important project. With
few exceptions, all agree that empathy or empathy-related emotions play
an important role in our moral orientation toward others, be it in our
moral judgment, our moral understanding, or our moral motivation, but
also that they only play a limited role if unaided by regulation, cognition,
culture, and so on.

(1) . I am going to ignore the origin of the term empathy here. I dont
think it helps much with the current debate. Suffice it to say that the
term was coined by Edward Titchener (1909) as a translation of the
German Einfhlung to denote an emotion that Theodore Lipps (1903)
famously associated with understanding works of art. For an excellent
historical overview of the uses of the term, see Karsten Stueber (2006).
(2) . This is one of Batons most used scenarios. Katie Banks is a senior
at the university (where the study is being conducted). Her parents and
sister have recently been killed in a car crash leaving her as the sole
caretaker of her surviving siblings: a brother and a sister. However, she
is struggling to finish her final year at university while taking care of two
children. She is very concerned that if she does not complete her degree,
she will be unable to find a job that pays enough for her to be able to
continue taking care of her siblings and that she will therefore have to
put them up for adoption. Katie needs someone to help her with her
studies to get her through the year (Batson, Early, & Salvarini 1997).
(3) . There are other findings of overlap, but in phenomena that may less
straightforwardly be called empathic emotions, such as in touch
(Blakemore, Bristow, Bird, Frith, & Ward. 2005, Keysers et al. 2004),
reward (Mobbs et al. 2009), and social exclusion (Masten, Morelli, &
Eisenberger 2011). See Boris Bernhardt and Tania Singer (2012) for an
authoritative review.
(4) . Goldman provides the following very helpful definition of
mirroring, as it is most commonly used: A neural process or event E is a
case of mirroring just in case E is the activation in an observer of a
neuron or neural system that (1) results from observing a targets
behavior or behavioral expression and (2) would, in a normalcase of
such behavior, match or replicate an activation in the target of a
corresponding neuron or neural system that the observed behavior
would manifest (Goldman 2009, 236).
(5) . For a fuller list of failures to forecast, see Maibom forthcoming.
(6) . One of the most used diagnostic tools of psychopathy.
(7) . Technically speaking, Shaun Nichols argues that psychopaths have
an impaired Concern Mechanism. He chooses that term to avoid
deciding whether empathy or sympathy or both play the role in
sociomoral regulation that he is concerned with.
(8) . The Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Short Form (PPI-SF) is
the short version of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI). Both
are self-report measures meant to be used with non-forensic
populations (Lilienfeld & Andrews 1996, Lilienfeld 2004). The PPI-SF
has two subcomponents. PPI-SF-I factor of psychopathy highlights
Stress Immunity, Social Potency, Fearlessness, and Coldheartedness,
and PPI-SF-II focuses on Impulsive Nonconformity, Blame
Externalization, Machiavellian Egocentricity, and Carefree
Nonplanfulness. This factor structure is meant to recapitulate Factor 1
vs. Factor 2 classification of thePsychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R),
or that between primary vs. secondary psychopathy.
(9) . Steven Sutton, Jennifer Vitale, and Joseph Newman found that
highly anxious female psychopaths do not exhibit abnormal startle
reflex, suggesting that they have an intact stress response to distress in
others (Sutton, Vitale, & Newman 2002).
(10) . Dadds and colleagues use a measure of empathy, the Griffith
Empathy Measure, which does not differentiate between emotional
reactivity, contagion, personal distress, or empathy. Pajer, Leininger, and
Gardner (2010) report that girls with conduct disorder (correlated with
later diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder) did not show
difficulties in identifying facial affect in others.
(11) . I use the term broadly to capture both high-performing people with
autism and people diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome.
(12) . These results are mostly based on self-reports using the
Interpersonal Reactivity Index, Questionnaire Measure of Emotional
Empathy, or Hogans Empathy Scale.
(13) . However, since he was inspired by Hume and Smith, it is likely
that he really had empathy in mind.
(14) . Hrdys fascinating reconstruction of parental behavior has it that
human infants typically spend long periods of time with caregivers that
are not their parents. This puts pressure on the child to understand
others and how to affect them in such a way as to receive what she needs
or wants.
(15) . For more extensive overviews of empathic development, see
Eisenberg 2000; Eisenberg, Spinrad, and Sadovsky 2006; Spinrad and
Eisenberg this volume; Hoffman 2000.
(16) . Researchers often talk of primary and secondary psychopaths.
Primary psychopaths are the ones who have more pronounced
emotional-interpersonal deficits. Secondary psychopaths are high on
Factor 2 of PCL-R, that is, behavioral and lifestyle issues. But some
studies suggest that the latter are more violent (Hicks, Markon, Patrick,
& Krueger 2004). This suggests that violence correlates more with
emotional dysregulation than with absence of vicarious emotional
responses, in line with the importance someone like Eisenberg puts on
regulation (Spinrad & Eisenberg this volume).
(17) . Notice that in Batsons (1991) Katie Banks scenario, Katies
misfortune is not the result of anyones wrongful actions. So by relying
on this literature Nichols succeeds in basing his theory on quite solid
empirical grounds, but he also changes the topic in such a way that it is
no longer clear how he addresses the concern of central interest to both
him and Blair: judgments of harmful actions.
(18) . If, indeed, it is the oomph provided by the emotions that back
moral norms that lend them their categoricalness, then one might
wonder whether the oomph of a truly aversive emotional response like
empathic or personal distress might not lend a more powerful oomph to
harm norms than the relatively weaker and calmer sympathy
(empathetic concern) that is the operative emotion in most of the
studies Nichols relies on. This suspicion is reinforced by considering
that the exemplar emotion in his story of the genealogy of norms is
disgustalso a quite powerful aversive emotion.
(19) . He calls it empirical internalism about core moral judgment (cf.
Nichols 2004, 109115).
(20) . Mild stimulation of the module might not be sufficient to produce
the emotion itself, but merely the relevant intuition, for example, that
inflicting the relevant harm is wrong.
(21) . This is a slight rephrasing of Socrates question in 10a: The point
which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is
beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of
the gods.
(22) . That is to say, a number of people take the norm of loyalty to be as
much a moral norm as the norm that one should not hurt others
gratuitously. Whether we should care about purity, authority, and group
norms I leave to the side here, as do most currently working in moral
psychology.
Empathy-Induced Altruism and Morality
No Necessary Connection
C. Daniel Batson
The empathy-altruism hypothesis states that empathic concern
produces altruistic motivation (Batson, 1987,2011). To understand this
deceptively simple hypothesis, it is necessary to be clear about what is
meant by both empathic concern and altruistic motivation.

Empathic Concern
In the hypothesis, empathic concern refers to other-oriented emotion
elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of a person in need.
This other-oriented emotion has been named as a sourceif not
thesourceof altruism by Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Adam Smith,
Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and William McDougall, as well as by
several contemporary psychologists.
Four points may help clarify what this emotional state involves. First,
congruent refers not to the specific content of the emotion but to its
valence: (p.42) positive when the perceived welfare of the other is
positive, negative when the perceived welfare is negative. For example, it
would be congruent to feel sad or sorry for someone who is upset and
afraidor, like the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:33), to feel compassion for
the unconscious victim of a mugging. Second, although the term
empathy is broad enough to include feeling empathic joy at anothers
good fortune (Smith, Keating, & Stotland, 1989; Stotland, 1969), not all
empathic emotion is hypothesized to produce altruistic motivation, only
empathic concern felt when another is perceived to be in need. Without
need, there is no impetus for change.
Third, empathic concern is not a single, discrete emotion but includes a
whole constellation. It includes feelings of sympathy, compassion,
softheartedness, tenderness, sorrow, sadness, upset, distress, concern,
and grief. Fourth, empathic concern is other-oriented in the sense that it
involves feeling for the otherfeeling sympathy for, compassion for,
sorry for, distressed for, concerned for, and so on. Although feelings of
sympathy and compassion are inherently other-oriented, we can feel
sorrow, distress, or concern that is not oriented toward someone else, as
when something bad happens directly to us. Both other-oriented and
self-oriented versions of these emotions may be described as feeling
sorry or sad, upset or distressed, concerned or grieved. This breadth of
usage invites confusion. The relevant psychological distinction lies not
in what emotional label is used but in whose welfare is the focus of the
emotion. Is one feeling sad, distressed, concerned for the other, or
feeling this way as a result of what has befallen oneselfincluding the
experience of seeing another suffer?
In recent years, the term empathy has been applied to a range of
phenomena other than the feeling-for described above (see Batson,
2009, for an overview). It has been used by different researchers to
mean:
Knowing anothers thoughts and feelings.
Adopting the posture or matching the neural response of another.
Coming to feel as another feels.
Feeling distress at witnessing anothers suffering.
Imagining how one would think and feel in anothers place.
Imagining how another thinks and feels.
A general disposition (trait) to feel for others.
Each of these phenomena is distinct from other-oriented empathic
concern. The empathy-altruism hypothesis makes no claim that any of
these other phenomena produces altruistic motivation, except if and
when that phenomenon evokes empathic concern.

(p.43) Altruistic Motivation

The term altruism is also used in multiple ways. In the empathy-
altruism hypothesis, altruism refers to a motivational state with the
ultimate goal of increasing anothers welfare. So defined, altruism can
be juxtaposed to egoism: a motivational state with the ultimate goal of
increasing ones own welfare. In each of these definitions, ultimate
refers to meansend relations, not to a metaphysical first or final cause,
and not to biological function. An ultimate goal is an end in itself. In
contrast, an instrumental goal is a stepping stone on the way to an
ultimate goal. If a barrier to reaching an instrumental goal arises,
alternative routes to the ultimate goal will be sought. Should the
ultimate goal be reached bypassing the instrumental goal, the
motivational force will disappear. If a goal is ultimate, it cannot be
bypassed in this way (Lewin, 1938). Both instrumental and ultimate
goals should be distinguished from unintended consequences, results of
an actionforeseen or unforeseenthat are not the goal of the action.
Each ultimate goal defines a distinct goal-directed motive. Hence,
altruism and egoism are distinct motives, even though they can co-
occur.
Altruism and egoism have much in common. Each refers to a
motivational state; each is concerned with the ultimate goal of this
motivational state; and, for each, the ultimate goal is to increase
someones welfare. These common features provide the context for
highlighting the crucial difference. Whose welfare is the ultimate goal,
another persons or ones own?
This motivational definition of altruism should be distinguished from
two other common uses:
As helping behavior, not motivation. Some scholars set aside the issue
of motivation, simply equating altruism with costly helping behavior.
This definition has been common among developmental psychologists
and primatologists (e.g., de Waal, 2008). It has also been common
among evolutionary biologists, who have defined altruism as behavior
that reduces an organisms reproductive fitnessthe potential to put its
genes in the next generationrelative to the reproductive fitness of one
or more other organisms. Using this definition, evolutionary biologists
can speak of altruism across a very broad phylogenetic spectrum,
ranging from social insects to humans (Alexander, 1987; Dawkins, 1976;
Hamilton, 1964; Trivers, 1971; Wilson, 1975). However, as Sober and
Wilson (1998) pointed out, it is important to distinguish between
evolutionary altruism and psychological altruism. Evolutionary
altruism is behavior that reduces ones reproductive
fitness.Psychological altruism is motivation with the ultimate goal of
increasing anothers welfare. Sober and Wilson emphasize that
evolutionary altruism is neither necessary nor sufficient to produce
(p.44) psychological altruism. The empathy-altruism hypothesis
concerns psychological altruism.
As helping in order to gain internal rather than external rewards. Other
scholars define altruism as a particular form of helpinghelping in
order to gain internal rather than external rewards. This use does
consider the motivation for benefiting others, but it reduces altruism to
a special form of egoism. By this definition, which is quite common
among behavioral economists (see Fehr & Zehnder, 2009), benefiting
another as a means to benefit oneself is altruism as long as the self-
benefits are internally rather than externally administered. If you help
someone in need in order to gain a good feeling, to avoid guilt, or to
reduce your aversive arousal caused by witnessing his or her suffering,
then your motivation is altruistic. By the definition I am using, these
ultimate goals are not altruistic. They are forms of egoism.

Evidence of Empathy-Induced Altruistic Motivation

Given the stated definitions of altruism and egoism, helping a person in
needeven at great cost to selfmay be altruistically motivated,
egoistically motivated, both, or neither. To know which, we must
determine whether removal of the need is (a) an ultimate goal and any
self-benefits are unintended consequences (altruism) or (b) an
instrumental means to reach the ultimate goal of benefiting oneself
(egoism). Three possible self-benefits of empathy-induced helping have
been identified, producing three egoistic alternatives to the empathy-
altruism hypothesis: (a) aversive-arousal reductionreducing the
empathic concern caused by witnessing another in need; (b) punishment
avoidanceavoiding empathy-specific material, social, and self-
punishments; and (c) reward seekinggaining empathy-specific
material, social, and self-rewards. Advocates of the empathy-altruism
hypothesis do not deny that relieving an empathy-inducing need is likely
to enable the helper to reduce aversive arousal, avoid punishments, and
gain rewards. However, they claim that these benefits to self are not the
ultimate goal of empathy-induced motivation, only unintended
consequences. Advocates of the egoistic alternatives disagree. They
claim that one or more of the self-benefits is the ultimate goal of the
motivation produced by empathic concern.
Complicating matters, we often do not know what our ultimate goals
are; we can pursue goals of which we are unaware. As a result, we cannot
trust self-reports regarding motivation; we need behavioral experiments.
There are now published reports of more than 35 experiments designed
to test the empathy-altruism hypothesis against one or more of the
egoistic alternatives (see Batson, 2011, for a review). Results of these
experiments have consistently patterned as (p.45) predicted by the
empathy-altruism hypothesis and have failed to support any of the
egoistic alternatives. To the best of my knowledge, there is no plausible
egoistic explanation for the cumulative evidence from these
experiments. This evidence has led me to concludetentativelythat
the empathy-altruism hypothesis is true, that empathic concern
produces altruistic motivation. Further, this altruistic motive can be
surprisingly powerful.

Is Empathy-Induced Altruism Moral?

Websters defines moral as: 1. of or concerned with principles of right
or wrong conduct. 2. being in accordance with such principles (1990, p.
589). I assume principles is used broadly hereto include standards,
ideals, norms, rules, and so onand that principles can be either
abstract (Love your neighbor, Tell the truth) or concrete (Take only
half of the remaining ice cream), explicitly stated or not, unconditional
or conditional, universal or relative, reason based or not.
Many people assume that empathy-induced altruism, if it exists, is
moral. Indeed, considerable empirical evidence seems to support such
an assumption. Not only is there extensive evidence that empathic
concern increases helping and other prosocial behaviors (see Batson,
2011; Eisenberg & Miller, 1987, for reviews) but there is also evidence
more limited and tenuousthat it decreases aggression and other
antisocial behaviors (see Miller & Eisenberg, 1988, for a review). This
evidence not withstanding, there are reasons to doubt the assumption
that empathy-induced altruism is moral.
First, logically, the assumed link between altruism and morality is
usually based on the juxtaposition of each to self-interest (cf.
Mansbridge, 1990). As defined above, altruism involves other-interest
rather than self-interest. Moreover, self-interest is often equated with
selfishness, which is, in turn, considered by many to be the epitome of
immorality (Campbell, 1975; Wallach & Wallach, 1983). It may seem to
follow, then, that if altruism is not self-interest and self-interest is not
moral, altruism is moral. But, quite apart from whether self-interest
should be equated with immorality (Rawls, 1971, and many others have
challenged this equation), to say that A(altruism) is not B (self-interest)
and B is not C (moral) does not mean that A is C. To say that apples are
not bananas and bananas are not cherries does not make apples cherries.
Second, empirically, to find that empathy-induced altruism can increase
moral, prosocial behavior and decrease immoral, antisocial behavior
does not rule out the possibility that it may also, at times, do the
opposite. The observed correlations are not so strong as to suggest the
relation is always positive, nor have all relevant situations been
examined. Rather, because the focal question (p.46) for many
researchers has been whether empathy can increase moral action
certainly a worthwhile question to asklittle attempt has been made to
test whether it might also, at times, increase immoral action.
Third, theoretically, the empathy-altruism hypothesis claims an
invariant relation between an emotional state (empathic concern) and a
motive (altruism); it does not claim an invariant link to behavior
(Batson, 1987, 1991,2011). Altruism and moral motivation are distinct
motives, each with its own ultimate goal: for altruism, the ultimate goal
is to increase anothers welfare; for moral motivation, to promote some
moral standard, principle, or ideal (e.g., be fair, do no harm, produce the
greatest good for the greatest number, do unto others . . .). Simply
because these two motives often promote the same behavioracting
morallydoes not mean that they are equivalent or even linked.
As with altruism and egoism, I am defining moral motivation in terms of
its ultimate goal, not its consequences. People frequently apply the label
moral to any motive that produces an outcome judged moral. But such
usage muddies the conceptual waters because it directs attention to the
behavioral surface rather than the underlying psychological process. As
Kurt Lewin (1951; also Cassirer, 1910/1921) argued long ago, scientific
understanding and explanation needs to follow the example of Galileo
and probe processin the present case, the goal(s) soughtrather than
simply classify consequences. Elsewhere, I have distinguished four
general classes of motives, each with a distinct ultimate goal, that might
lead a person to act in a way judged moral: egoism, altruism,
collectivism, and, to have another ism, principlismmoral motivation
(Batson, 1994, 2011, in preparation). Action judged moral may be an
instrumental means to pursue self-interest (egoism), as when one is
kind to court kindness in return. Or such action may be intended to
increase another individuals, or a groups, welfarethat is, motivated by
altruism or collectivismwith morality an unintended consequence.
Only for principlism is promoting a moral standard, principle, or ideal
the ultimate goal, so only it deserves the labelmoral motivation. Egoism,
altruism, and collectivism will produce moral behavior only to the
degree that, given the circumstances, this behavior is the best way to
reach the motives ultimate goal. Each is only tangentiallyand
unreliablymoral.
Focusing specifically on empathy-induced altruism, this motive can lead
me to act in a way judged moralproviding succor, redressing injustice.
But altruism and morality can also be at odds. Imagine, for example, an
employer who believes in fairness and who must decide which of two
employees to promote. Employee A is clearly better qualified and more
deserving, but the employer feels sorry for Employee B, whose mother
recently died. Fairness pulls in one direction; empathy-induced altruism
in the opposite. If sufficiently strong,(p.47) empathy-induced altruism
may lead the employer to act unfairly, violating a personally held moral
standard.
This process-level analysis leads to the suggestion that, as a motive,
empathy-induced altruism is neither moral nor immoral; it is amoral.
Sometimes, it will encourage people to act in accord with their moral
principles; at other times, to violate them. Far from thinking of this
behavioral inconsistency as an empirical embarrassment, as a surface-
level analysis might, the variation is embraced as a theoretically based
prediction.

Immorality from Empathy-Induced Altruism

When will empathy-induced altruism lead a person to violate his or her
moral principles and act immorally? When four conditions are satisfied:
(a) a person has an opportunity to affect the welfare of more than one
person; (b) not everyones welfare can be fully served; (c) the person
holds a moral standard that specifies what action is right; and (d)
empathy felt for one or more of the affected individuals produces
altruistic motivation that promotes a different course of action. In such
a situation, if the empathy-induced altruism is stronger than the motive
to do what is right, it will lead the person to violate his or her moral
standard.
Employing this logic, colleagues and I have conducted over a half-dozen
experiments that provide evidence that empathy-induced altruism,
much like self-interested egoism, can conflict with and, at times,
overpower moral motivation. The first two were reported by Batson,
Klein, Highberger, and Shaw (1995).

Assigning Workers to Tasks

In the first experiment, 60 female introductory psychology students
were, ostensibly randomly, placed in the role of a Supervisor. As
Supervisor, they were to assign two Workersother introductory
psychology students whom they would never meetto tasks. One of the
tasks had positive consequences. For each correct response, the Worker
performing this task would receive 1 raffle ticket for a $30 gift
certificate. The other task had negative consequences. For each incorrect
response, the Worker would receive an uncomfortable electric shock,
two to three times the strength of static electricity. To make the moral
principle of procedural fairness salient, before Supervisors assigned the
tasks they all read: Most Supervisors feel that flipping a coin is the
fairest way to assign the tasks, but the decision is entirely up to you. You
can assign the (p.48) Workers however you wish. A coin was provided
for Supervisors to flip if they chose. The Workers would not know how
the tasks were assigned, only which task was theirs.
Supervisors either did or did not receive communication from one of the
Workers, designated simply as Participant C. The communication was in
the form of a note in which Participant C described something
interesting that had happened to her recently. Participants were told that
the note was written before C had any knowledge about the nature of the
research and that she did know her note would be read by the Supervisor
(so it could not be perceived as an attempt to play on the sympathy of
the Supervisor).
Participant Cs note revealed that she had recently been dumped by her
boyfriend. It ended: Ive been real down. Its all I think about. My
friends all tell me that Ill meet other guys and they say that all I need is
for something good to happen to cheer me up. I guess theyre right, but
so far that hasnt happened. It was assumed that participants would
think that giving C the positive-consequences task (raffle tickets) might
cheer her up, whereas assigning her to the negative-consequences
(electric shocks) would not. Of the 40 participants who read the note,
half were instructed to remain objective and detached while reading
(low-empathy condition), and half were instructed to imagine how the
student writing the note felt about what was described (high-empathy
condition). Self-reported emotional response following reading the note
confirmed the effectiveness of this manipulation.
How did Supervisors go about assigning the Workers to tasks? All 20
participants in the no-communication condition (who read no note)
reported using a random method (flipping the coin). Consistent with
this report and with a standard of procedural fairness, 50% of the
Supervisors in this condition assigned Participant C to the positive-
consequences task. In the communication/low-empathy condition, 17 of
the 20 Supervisors reported using a random method (flipping the coin);
the other three said they assigned C to the positive consequences
without flipping the coin. In spite of these three, the net result was the
same as in the no-communication condition: 50% assigned C to the
positive-consequences task.
Results were quite different in the communication/high-empathy
condition. There, only 10 of the 20 Supervisors reported using a random
method. Of these 10, five (50%) assigned C to the positive consequences.
The other 10 all assigned C to the positive consequences without flipping
the coin. The overall percentage assigning C to the positive-
consequences task in this condition, 75%, deviated significantly from the
50% that procedural fairness would dictate.
When later asked an open-ended question about the fairest way to
assign the tasks, 18 of the 20 participants in each experimental condition
said that flipping the coin (or use of some other random method) was
most fair. Only (p.49) one person in each communication condition
said that assigning C to the positive consequences without flipping the
coin was most fair. Yet in spite of what they said was fair, half of those in
the communication/high-empathy condition showed partiality to the
participant for whom they had been led to feel empathic concern. And
when asked whether the way they assigned the workers was morally
right, those in this condition who showed partiality said the way they
assigned was less right than did those who used the coin.
Playing God
In a second experiment, the consequences of showing partiality were
more severe. Participants were placed in the awkward position of, in
essence, playing God. Each of 60 introductory psychology students (30
men, 30 women) heard an interview with Sheri Summers, a 10-year-old
child with a slow-progressing terminal illness. They then were given an
unexpected chance to help Sheri by moving her off a waiting list and into
an immediate-treatment group ahead of other children who either had
more severe terminal illnesses or had been waiting longer for treatment,
an act contrary to standards of fairness and maximizing utility. Empathic
concern for Sheri was manipulated by the perspective from which
participants were instructed to listen to the interview. Once again, those
in the low-empathy condition were to remain objective, those in the
high-empathy condition to imagine Sheris feelings. And once again,
subsequent self-reports indicated this manipulation was effective.
Most participants in the low-empathy condition acted fairly, declining
the opportunity to move Sheri into the immediate-treatment group
ahead of children with more severe illnesses, or who had been waiting
longer. Only 33% chose to move her. Those in the high-empathy
condition were far more likely to do so; 73% chose to move Sheri into
the immediate-treatment group. In this experiment, as in the preceding
one, effects of the empathy manipulation on behavior were mediated by
reported feelings of empathic concern and, in turn, the relative strength
of empathy-induced altruism and moral motivation.
Results of these two experiments support the idea that empathy-induced
altruism can lead us to violate our moral standards. In each experiment,
participants not induced to feel empathic concern for one of the
individuals in need tended to uphold their standards. Participants
induced to feel empathy tended to favor the individual for whom they
felt empathic concern. It was not that the high-empathy participants
who showed partiality abandoned their principles; they agreed with
other participants that partiality was less moral than impartiality.
However, they were willing to go against their moral standards to benefit
a person for whom they had been led to care.

(p.50) Partiality in Social Dilemmas

In a second series of experiments, colleagues and I have found that
empathy felt for one person in a social dilemma can lead participants to
violate the Utilitarian principle of the greatest good for the greatest
number. Asocial dilemma arises when: (a) a person has a choice about
how to allocate scarce resources (time, money, energy) and, regardless
what others do, (b) to allocate the resources to the group provides the
greatest good overall, but (c) to allocate the resources to a single
individual (oneself or another group member) is best for that individual,
and yet (d) if all allocations are to separate individuals, each individual is
worse off than if all allocations are to the group. Examples of social
dilemmas abound in modern society. They include recycling, car pooling,
reducing pollution, voting, contributing to public TV or to the local
symphony, and so on.
I mentioned in the previous paragraph the possibility that one could
allocate resources to another individual in the group. Interestingly, in
prior research on and discussions of social dilemmas, this possibility had
never been considered. Guided by the assumption of universal egoism
that underlies game theory, it was taken for granted that the only
individual to whom one would allocate scarce resources would be
oneself. Yet the empathy-altruism hypothesis predicts that if you feel
empathy for another member of the group, you will be altruistically
motivated to benefit that person. And if you can allocate resources to
him or her, then rather than two motivesegoism (maximize your own
welfare) and principlism (provide the greatest good for the greatest
number)a third motive is also in play: empathy-induced altruism. It
too can conflict with the common good.
How often do we feel empathy for others in a collective? Frequently.
Indeed, it is hard to think of a real-world social dilemma in which we do
not. Empathy is likely to play a role every time we try to decide whether
to spend our time or moneyor whether to appropriate scarce common
resourcesto benefit ourselves, the common good, or another individual
for whom we especially care. A father may resist contributing to public
TV not to buy himself a new shirt but because he feels for his daughter,
who wants new shoes. An executive may retain an ineffective employee
for whom he or she feels compassion to the detriment of the company.
Whalers may kill to extinction and loggers clear-cut, not out of personal
greed but to provide for their families.
To test whether empathy-induced altruism can indeed hurt the common
good in a social dilemma, Batson, Batson et al. (1995) conducted two
studies. In each, undergraduate participants faced a dilemma in which
they could choose to benefit themselves, the group as a whole, or one or
more other group members as individuals. In Study 1, empathy for
another group member was (p.51) induced through experimental
manipulation; in Study 2, the level of empathic concern was determined
by self-report. In each study, participants who experienced high empathy
allocated more resources to the person for whom they felt empathy,
reducing the overall collective good. Once again, this research provides
evidence that empathy-induced altruism and motivation to act morally
this time, motivation to provide the greatest good to the greatest number
are distinct motives that do not always pull together.
Still, you may doubt that altruism is a serious threat to the common
good. Most people would say that altruism, even if it exists, is weak
compared to self-interest (egoism). I think empathy-induced altruism
can be a serious threat. In fact, when ones action is public, altruism can
be a more serious threat to the common good than is self-interest. There
are clear social norms and sanctions to inhibit pursuit of ones own
interests at the expense of what is fair and best for all (Kerr, 1995):
selfish and greedy are stinging epithets. Norms and sanctions against
showing concern for anothers interests, even if doing so diminishes the
common good, are far less clear. To show favoritism toward another
individual, especially an individual in need, is not likely to be called
selfish or greedy. One may be accused of being a pushover, soft, or a
bleeding heart, but these terms carry an implicit charge of weakness,
not greed.
To test the idea that, when ones behavior is public, altruism can be a
more serious threat to the common good than is egoism, Batson et al.
(1999) conducted two experiments using a modified dilemma situation.
In each experiment, some participants chose between allocation of
resources to the group as a whole or to themselves alone (egoism
condition). Some chose between allocation to a group of which they
were not a member or to a member of this group for whom they were
induced to feel empathy (altruism condition). Finally, some chose
between allocation to the group of which they were not a member or to a
member of this group without empathy being induced (baseline
condition). When the decision was private, allocation to the group was
significantlyand similarlylower in the egoism and altruism
conditions compared to the baseline. However, when the decision was
public, allocation to the group was significantly lower only in the
altruism condition. These results indicate, first, that both egoism and
altruism can be potent threats to the common good and, second, that
anticipated social evaluation is a powerful inhibitor of the egoistic but
not the altruistic threat. These results have wide-ranging implications.
How do whalers and loggers stand up to moral censure for over-
depletion of natural resources? Easily. They are using these resources
not for themselves but to care for their families.
If empathy-induced altruism poses a threat to the common good, why
are there no sanctions against it, as there are against egoism? Perhaps
this is because society makes one or both of two assumptions: Empathy-
induced(p.52) altruism is moral. Empathy-induced altruism is weak.
There is now rather clear evidence that each of these assumptions is
wrong.

Two Different Perspectives on Anothers Situation; Two Different Motives

In his classic studies on empathy, Ezra Stotland (1969) identified two
different forms of perspective taking. He found that (a) imagining what
ones own thoughts and feelings would be if one were in the situation of
a person in need (an imagine-self perspective) and (b) imagining the
thoughts and feelings of the person in need (an imagine-other
perspective) both led to increased emotional arousal compared to
adopting a cool, objective perspective. However, the emotions aroused
by the two imagine perspectives were not the same. An imagine-self
perspective produced a mix of self-oriented personal distress (feeling
tense, upset, etc.) and other-oriented empathic concern (feeling
sympathetic, compassionate, etc.). An imagine-other perspective
produced relatively pure empathic concern. (For further evidence of this
difference in emotions produced by these two forms of perspective
taking, see Batson, Early, & Salvarini, 1997.) Consider the effects of each
on morality.
Imagine-self. Moral prescriptions such as the Golden Rule (do unto
others as you would have others do unto you) seem to assume that an
imagine-self perspective will stimulate moral motivation. Consider a
situation in which research participantsrather than assigning two
other participants to tasksassign themselves and another participant,
with one task clearly more desirable than the other. If these participants
are induced to imagine themselves in the other participants situation
prior to making the assignment decision, then, following the Golden
Rule, they should be more likely to use a fair method (e.g., flip a coin)
rather than simply give themselves the better task. After all, that is how
they would like to be treated were the other assigning the tasks.
Imagine-other. Results from a number of experiments, including those
discussed above, have indicated that adopting an imagine-other
perspective toward a person in need evokes empathic concern for that
person, which according to the empathy-altruism hypothesis should
evoke altruistic motivation, not moral motivation. If so, participants
induced to imagine the others feelings prior to making the task
assignment should not become fairer. Rather, they should be more likely
to give the other participant the positive consequences directly, without
flipping the coinmuch as a person motivated by self-interest should
take the positive consequences without flipping.
Effects of perspective taking on task assignment. To test these
predictions, Batson et al. (2003) had some participants who were about
to make a (p.53) self-versus-other task assignment first perform a brief
imagination exercise, whereas other participants did not. Among those
who did the exercise, half were asked to imagine yourself in the place of
the other participant for one minute and then write down what they
had imagined (imagine-self condition); the other half were asked to
imagine how the other participant likely feels, then write (imagine-
other condition).
Compared to those given no imagination exercise, the imagine-self
perspective had only a limited (and not statistically significant) effect on
the fairness of the task assignment. (In a follow-up experiment in which
the other participant was at an initial disadvantage, an imagine-self
perspective did significantly increase fairness.) The imagine-other
perspective had a dramatic effect. It did not increase fairness (i.e., use of
the coin); rather, it increased the number of participants who assigned
the other to the positive-consequences task without flipping the cointo
73%. (Without an empathy induction, only 10 to 30% of those who do
not flip typically assign the other the positive.) In this condition, giving
the other the positive consequences was significantly positively
correlated with reported empathic concern felt for the other (r = .60),
whereas choosing to flip the coin was significantly negatively correlated
with reported empathic concern (r = .53). These results are quite
consistent with the idea that an imagine-other perspective produces
empathy-induced altruistic motivation, not moral motivation. Once
again, the two motives seem quite distinct.

A Closer Look at Moral Motivation

It is perhaps not surprising that most moral philosophers have argued
for the importance of a motive for moral action other than egoism. But
many since Kant (1785/1993) have also argued against altruism and
collectivism. Consistent with the research above, they reject appeals to
altruism, especially empathy-induced altruism, because feelings of
empathy, sympathy, and compassion are too fickle and circumscribed.
Empathic concern is not felt for everyone in need, certainly not to the
same degree. Similarly, collectivism is circumscribed by the interests of
the group. Moral philosophers typically call for motivation with a goal of
promoting some universal and impartial moral standard, principle, or
ideal (but also see Williams, 1981).
For example, John Rawls (1971) famously argued for a principle of
justice based on the allocation of goods to the members of society from
an initial position behind the Veil of Ignorance, where no one knows his
or her place in societyprince or pauper, laborer or lawyer, male or
female, Black or White. Allocating from this position eliminates
partiality and seduction by special interest. A universal, impartial
principle of justice much like Rawlss was the (p.54) basis for
Kohlbergs (1976, 1984) Post-Conventional or Principled moral
reasoning, the highest level in his stage model of moral development.
Universalist views of morality have not gone unchallenged. Writers like
Lawrence Blum (1980), Carol Gilligan (1982), Nel Noddings (1984), and
Joan Tronto (1987) have called for recognition of forms of morality that
allow for special interest in the welfare of certain others. In opposition
to an ethic based on fairness and justice, these writers propose an ethic
of care. Sometimes, care is proposed as an alternative principle to
justice, either as a substitute or in dynamic tension with it. At other
times, care seems to be an alternative to principled morality altogether.
If care is an alternative principle, then it too may evoke a form of moral
motivation (principlism), motivation to promote a principle of care or
doing no harm (Baron, 1996), with which empathy-induced altruism
may conflict. If, however, care is a special feeling for another individual,
then it is a form of altruism.
One way to distinguish care based on altruism from care based on
principle is to consider Kants (1785/1993) second formulation of the
categorical imperative. This formulation states that we should never
treat any person only as a means but always as an end. To act on
altruistic motivation, that is, to act with the others welfare as an
ultimate rather than an instrumental goal, is to treat the other as an end.
If successful, such action accords with the persons-as-ends imperative.
But, as noted earlier, such action is not morally motivated because the
altruistic goal is to increase the others welfare, not to promote some
moral standard, principle, or ideal. It is not enough that ones action be
consistent with principle; the action must be carried out to promote the
principle. Treat others as ends must be the ultimate goal (whether
implicit or explicit), not simply a consequence.
Acting to promote some principle or ideal provides a motive for acting
morally that transcends reliance on self-interest and on interest in and
feeling for the welfare of certain other individuals or groups. Standards
that are universal and impartial do not play favorites. This is true of the
Utilitarian principle of the greatest good for the greatest number (Mill,
1861/1987); it is true of any principle that satisfies the first formulation
of Kants (1785/1993) categorical imperative (the principle can be willed
to be a universal law); it is true of Rawlss (1971) criterion for justice
(allocation of goods and opportunities behind the Veil of Ignorance); it
is true of a principle to do no harm; and it is true of the Golden Rule.
Promoting principle is not, however, problem free, even as a motive for
acting morally. The major problem with moral motivation is
corruptibility; it seems quite vulnerable to rationalization. We can be
quite adept at justifying to ourselvesif not to otherswhy acting in a
way that benefits us or those we care about does not violate our moral
principles: Why, for example, the (p.55) inequalities in the public
school systems of rich and poor districts in the United States are not
really unjust (Kozol, 1991). Why we have the right to a disproportionate
share of the worlds natural resources. Why storing our nuclear waste in
someone elses backyard is fair. Why watching public TV without
contributing, or why foregoing the extra effort to recycle, is not wrong.
Why attacks by our enemies are atrocities, but attacks by our side are
necessities. The abstractness and multiplicity of moral principles make it
easy to convince ourselves that the relevant principles are those that just
happen to serve our interests.
Most of us think of ourselves as highly moral (Sedikides & Strube, 1997;
Van Lange, 1991). Yet when our own interest is best served by violating
avowed moral principles, we often find ways to do just this. We mange
to see ourselves as fair, honest, and caringor at least not unfair,
dishonest, and uncaringwhile avoiding the cost to self of actually being
so. Moral principles are affirmed, but motivation to uphold these
principles seems weak.
A number of psychological processes may contribute to this weakness.
First, people may conveniently forget to think about their moral
principles if such an omission serves their interests (Bersoff, 1999).
Second, people may actively rationalize (Tsang, 2002), convincing
themselves that a given principle does not apply either to the specific
others whose interests conflict with their own (moral exclusionStaub,
1990) or to the specific situation (moral disengagementBandura, 1991,
1999). Third, people may deceive themselves into believing that they
acted morally even when they did not (moral hypocrisyBatson,
Kobrynowicz, Dinnerstein, Kampf, & Wilson,1997). Fourth, moral
principles may be internalized only to the degree that they are
experienced as oughts but not wants (Batson, 2002, in preparation; Deci,
Eghrari, Patrick, & Leone, 1994). Our skill in deflecting the thrust of the
principles we espouse may help explain the weak empirical relation
between (a) avowal of moral principles and (b) moral action (Blasi,
1980; Eisenberg, 1991; Emler, Renwick, & Malone, 1983; Erkut,
Jaquette, & Staub,1981; Sparks & Durkin, 1987).

Orchestrating Motives
Empathy-induced altruism and moral motivation are distinct goal-
directed motives. Each has strengths, but each also has weaknesses. The
greatest good may come from strategies that orchestrate these motives
so that the strengths of one can overcome the weaknesses of the other.
Think once again about principles of fairness or of the greatest good.
These principles are universal and impartial, but motivation to uphold
them seems corruptiblevulnerable to oversight, rationalization, and
self-deception. Empathy-induced altruism is a potentially powerful
motive with a strong emotional base. But it is limited (p.56) in scope,
producing special concern for particular persons. Perhaps if people can
be led to feel empathy for the victims of injustice, or for those with
special needs, this will bring together the unique strengths of these two
motives. Desire to uphold standards, principles, and ideals may provide
perspective and reason; empathy-induced altruism may provide
emotional fire and a force directed specifically toward seeing the victims
suffering enda want to accompany the moral ought. The
combination may discourage oversight and rationalization (see
Solomon, 1990).
This orchestration of empathy-induced altruism and moral motivation
may seem to echo Martin Hoffmans idea of empathy-based morality,
especially when he says:
My hypothesis is that abstract moral principles, learned in cool
didactic contexts (lectures, sermons), lack motive force. Empathys
contribution to moral principles is to transform them into prosocial
hot cognitionscognitive representations charged with empathic
affect, thus giving them motive force. (Hoffman, 2000, p. 239)
In spite of sharing Hoffmans hypothesis, I believe that our views are
importantly different. He speaks of embedding empathy in morality
and of bonding empathic affect to a moral principle. Such language
suggests that empathy becomes inextricably linked to morality, that
rather than independent motives that may cooperate or conflict,
empathy-induced altruism and morality necessarily work in harmony.
The research reviewed above contradicts this optimistic assumption.
Although empathy-induced altruism can lead a person to act in a way
judged moral, it can also lead the person to violate his or her own moral
standards. Altruism and morality have no necessary connection. The
challenge is to orchestrate altruistic and moral motives so they
complement one another.

Examples
Let me close with a few concrete examples of orchestration of empathy-
induced altruism and moral motivation. A careful look at data collected
by Samuel and Pearl Oliner and their colleagues (Oliner & Oliner, 1988)
suggests that such orchestration occurred in the lives of a number of
rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe. Involvement in rescue activity
frequently began with concern for a specific individual or individuals for
whom compassion was feltoften individuals known previously. This
initial involvement subsequently led to further contacts and rescue
activity, and to a concern to do right that extended (p.57) well beyond
the bounds of the initial empathic concern. In several cases, most
notably in the French village of Le Chambon, the result was dramatic
indeed.
Such orchestration also seems to have occurred at the time of the bus
boycott in Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1950s. The horrific sight on TV
news of a small Black child being rolled down the street by water from a
fire hose under the direction of local policeand the emotions this sight
evokedseemed to do more to arouse a concern for racial equality and
civil rights than hours of reasoned moral suasion.
In these two examples, orchestration was not planned; it occurred as a
result of unfolding events. At other times, the orchestra has a human
conductor. Intentionally creating confrontations designed to induce
empathic concern seems to lie at the heart of the nonviolent protest in
the face of entrenched oppression practiced by Mahatma Gandhi and by
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Such orchestration can also be found in the writing of Jonathan Kozol.
Deeply troubled by the savage inequalities in public education between
rich and poor communities in the United States, Kozol (1991) clearly
documents disparities, pointing out the injustice. But he does more. He
takes us into the lives of individual children. We come to care about
their welfare and, as a result, to care about setting things right. Kozols
goal is not simply to get us to feel; he wants to get us involved in action
to improve funding for schools in poor communities. He pursues this
goal by orchestrating empathy-induced altruism and moral motivation.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852/1929) used much the same orchestration
strategy to galvanize opposition to slavery inUncle Toms Cabin.
However difficult it may be in practice, coordinating altruism and moral
motivation by inducing empathy for victims of immorality is
theoretically straightforward. Yet this is not the only possible way to
combine these two motives. The story of wise King Solomon presents a
far more subtle example of the use of empathy-induced altruismand
the partiality it inducesin the service of doing right. Recall that two
women came before Solomon. One claimed that when the others infant
son died, the bereft mother switched her dead son for the first womans
live one. The other woman claimed that the dead son was the first
womans and the live son hers.
So the king [Solomon] said, Bring me a sword, and they brought a
sword before the king. The king said, Divide the living boy in two;
then give half to the one, and half to the other. But the woman
whose son was alive said to the kingbecause compassion for her
son burned within herPlease, my lord, give her the living boy;
certainly do not kill him! The other said, It shall be neither mine
nor yours; divide it. Then the king responded: Give the first
woman the living boy; do not kill him. She is his mother. (1 Kings
3:2427 NRSV)
(p.58) Thus did Solomon execute justice (1 Kings 3:28). It is hard to
imagine a more successful orchestration of empathy-induced altruism
and moral motivation.
Orchestrating these motives is a promising strategy for promoting action
on behalf of both those suffering immoral treatment and society at large.
It appears capable of producing dramatic results. Yet it is rarely even
considered. The assumption that empathy-induced altruism is
necessarily moral has prevented us from recognizing the importance of
such a strategy. With this assumption no longer tenable, new challenges
and possibilitiesarise.
Empathy and Morality
A Developmental Psychology Perspective
Tracy L. Spinrad
Nancy Eisenberg
The constructs of empathy and sympathy have been considered
important emotional aspects of morality, particularly with regard to how
such emotions contribute to moral values and moral behavior (Batson,
1991; Eisenberg, Fabes & Spinrad, 2006; Hoffman, 2000).
Understanding these aspects of morality in children may have important
implications for childrens sense of responsibility, compassion, and later
humanitarian conduct. Thus, it is important to take a developmental
approach to understanding moral behavior in children; understanding
the development, correlates, and origins of such behavior are critical in
order to develop ways to promote such characteristics.
In this chapter, definitional issues with respect to empathy and
empathy-related responding and the links between such responses and
moral behavior are discussed first. Next, the development of empathy
and prosocial behavior is considered. We then briefly cover some
correlates of empathy, sympathy, and prosocial behavior. We conclude
this chapter with a discussion of the origins (p.60) of empathy and
prosocial behavior, focusing on the role of temperamental differences in
emotion and regulation, and we suggest areas for further study.

Definitional Issues and Relations to Moral Behavior

Given the importance of empathy, we have argued that it is useful to
differentiate between empathy and its related responses (i.e., sympathy,
personal distress; see Eisenberg, Fabes & Spinrad, 2006). Empathy is
defined as an affective response that stems from the apprehension or
comprehension of anothers emotional state or condition and is very
similar to or the same as what another person feels or would be expected
to feel. For example, upon viewing someone who is sad, if an individual
also feels sad, she would be experiencing empathy.Sympathy is an
other-oriented emotional response stemming from the apprehension of
anothers emotional state but does not involve feeling the same emotion
as the other (or what the other is expected to feel); rather, sympathy
reflects feelings of sorrow or concern for the other. Thus, if a young girl
views a sad boy and feels concern for him, she is experiencing sympathy.
Although sympathy likely stems from empathy, it may also stem from
cognitive perspective taking or accessing relevant information from
memory.
Empathy also can sometimes lead to personal distress rather than
sympathy. Personal distress reflects a self-focused, aversive affective
reaction, such as anxiety or discomfort, upon the apprehension of
anothers emotion. This reaction may stem from empathic overarousal,
but it also may stem from other emotion-related processes, such as
shame or guilt or from retrieving certain information from mental
storage (i.e., through an association between cues related to anothers
sadness and distressing memories from ones own past). Thus, empathy,
sympathy, and personal distress involve different emotional experiences
and at least some cognitive processing.
It is important to distinguish between empathy and its related responses
because these emotions are viewed as having different moral
motivations and, consequently, different behaviors, particularly
altruistic behavior (Batson, 1998). Prosocial behavior has been defined
as voluntary behavior intended to benefit another, including behaviors
such as helping, sharing comforting, and volunteering (see Eisenberg
Fabes, & Spinrad,2006). Prosocial behavior can be motivated by a variety
of factors including egoistic concerns (e.g., rewards or social approval),
other-oriented concerns (e.g., sympathy), or moral values (e.g., the
desire to uphold internalized moral values). Altruism is generally
defined as prosocial behavior motivated by concern for another or moral
values as opposed to hedonistic and other nonmoral reasons (see
Eisenberg, (p.61) Fabes, & Spinrad,2006). Because the motivation for
prosocial behaviors in a given context is often unknown, we use the
broader term of prosocial behavior throughout this chapter.
Sympathy is viewed as associated with the desire to reduce the other
persons distress, and as such, it is viewed as an emotion fostering
prosocial action. On the other hand, personal distress reactions are
thought to lead to egoistic, rather than other-oriented, concerns and the
motivation to make oneself, rather than the other person, feel better
(Batson, 1991). Personal distress reactions, therefore, would be
associated with egoistic motivations and would lead to prosocial
behavior only in a situation in which it is the easiest way to reduce ones
own distress (e.g., in a situation in which one cannot escape from the
others distress cues).
Indeed, researchers have demonstrated the predicted relations between
prosocial behavior and empathy-related responding. Using a variety of
methods, sympathy has been positively related to prosocial behavior in
children and adults (Batson, 1998; Eisenberg, Fabes, Schaller & Miller,
1989; Zahn-Waxler, Robinson, & Emde, 1992; Knafo, Zahn-Waxler, Van
Hulle, Robinson, & Rhee, 2008). In a recent study of Mexican-American
college students, sympathy was positively related to a number of types of
prosocial behavior (Carlo, McGinley, Hayes, & Martinez, 2012). In
addition, personal distress reactions generally have been negatively
related or unrelated to prosocial actions (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990;
Knafo, Zahn-Waxler, Van Hulle, Robinson, & Rhee, 2008; Roberts &
Strayer, 1996; Zahn-Waxler, Cole, Welsh, & Fox, 1995).

Development of Empathy and Prosocial Behavior

In understanding the development of prosocial behavior in young
children, researchers have nearly exclusively relied on Hoffmans (2000)
developmental theory. In this theory, a series a phases from self-concern
to more empathic, other-oriented concern were delineated. Specifically,
in the first stage of global empathy, infants may exhibit rudimentary
forms of empathic response, seen in newborns contagious crying.
Around the end of the first year of life, infants enter the phase known as
egocentric empathy. This phase is reflected in infants seeking comfort
for themselves when confronted with anothers distress. Hoffman
argued that infants respond to others distress and actual distress in the
same way because infants are unable to differentiate self from other. In
the second year of life, toddlers enter the phase known as quasi-
egocentric empathy. It is during this period that toddlers develop a sense
of self as separate from others and are capable of experiencing concern
for another, rather than seeking comfort for themselves. However, these
prosocial behaviors may involve (p.62) giving the distressed person
what they themselves find comforting (e.g., getting ones own mother
for a distressed peer rather than the peers mother). As children
cognitively mature, they are able to understand that anothers needs
may differ from their own, and this period is known as veridical
empathic distress. By later childhood, children may experience empathy
toward people who are not physically present, such as if they hear about
someone in distress, and around ages 910, children can experience
empathy for anothers life condition or general plight.
Consistent with Hoffmans model, empathy has been related to
improvements in cognitive functioning, particularly the ability to pass
mirror self-recognition tasks (Bischof-Kohler, 2012; Zahn-Waxler,
Schiro, Robinson, Emde, & Schmitz, 2001). However, there is a growing
debate regarding whether infants experience empathy somewhat earlier
than Hoffman proposed (Brownell, 2013; Davidov, Zahn-Waxler, Roth-
Hanania, & Knafo, 2013; Geangu, Benga, Stahl & Striano, 2011). One
reason to question Hoffmans developmental model is that scientists
have recently shown that infants demonstrate selfother differentiation
using implicit measures earlier than when toddlers typically pass mirror
self-recognition tasks. For example, children begin to demonstrate an
understanding of others intentions, goals, and desires between 9 and 12
months (Woodward,1999; 2003) and have shown the ability to make
judgments about others moral character as young as 3 months of age
(Hamlin & Wynn, 2011; Hamlin, Wynn, & Bloom, 2007; 2010; Hamlin,
Wynn, Bloom, & Mahajan, 2011). Further, whereas few researchers have
attempted to study prosocial behavior and empathy in very young
toddlers, Roth-Hanania, Davidov, and Zahn-Waxler (2011) showed that
8- and 10-month olds occasionally showed affective and cognitive
concern for others.
There is also evidence that toddlers may demonstrate prosocial
behaviors as young as 1418 months, depending on the type of prosocial
behavior. For example, Warneken and Tomasello (2007) showed that
toddlers frequently behave prosocialy in instrumental helping tasks
(e.g., picking up a dropped object that the experimenter is reaching for),
and this finding has been replicated in other work (Svetlova, Nichols, &
Brownell,2010). Other indices of prosocial behavior, such as helping
others who are distressed or when helping requires some self-sacrifice
(e.g., giving away ones own toys) are less frequent in younger toddlers
and tend to occur later in toddlerhood (Svetlova, Nichols, & Brownell,
2010).
Despite the lack of consensus regarding the initial onset of empathy in
infancy or toddlerhood, there is consistent evidence that young children
tend to increase in prosocial behavior and empathy with age (Knafo,
Zahn-Waxler, Van Hulle, Robinson, & Rhee, 2008; Zan-Waxler, Schiro,
Robinson, Emde & Schmitz, 2001). In a meta-analysis, Eisenberg and
Fabes (1998) found that (p.63) prosocial responding (and
empathy/sympathy) generally increased with age. Mean-level increases
were found within the infancy period and across the preschooler to
adolescent years. Increases also were found across childhood. Self-
distress reactions tend to decrease with age (Liew et al., 2011; van der
Mark, van Ijzendoorn, & Bakermans Kranenburg, 2002; Zan-Waxler,
Schiro, Robinson, Emde, & Schmitz, 2001). It is important to note,
however, that meta-analytic findings demonstrated that the age
increases in empathy across childhood vary in effect size depending on
the method of assessment; larger effects were found for behavioral and
self-report measures than for facial, physiological, or other-report
measures (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998). Moreover, despite these general
increases with age, Hay and colleagues have argued that rather than
simply increasing with age, prosocial behaviors become more selective,
socially appropriate, and deliberate during the preschool years (Hay &
Cook, 2007). That is, prosocial behaviors may be more frequent toward
friends versus non-friends (Costin & Jones, 1992; Howes & Farver, 1987;
Moore,2009) and toward those who reciprocate versus those who do not
(Fujisawa, Kutsukake, & Hasegawa, 2008; Hay, Castle, Davies,
Demetriou, & Stimson, 1999; Olson & Spelke, 2008).
Although researchers interested in the development of empathy and
prosocial behavior have particularly focused on its early development,
the limited data on the development across childhood and adolescence
suggest somewhat complex trends. For example, in a sample of
Canadian French-speaking boys, Kokko, Tremblay, Lacourse, Nagin, and
Vitaro (2006) reported that teachers perceptions of childrens prosocial
behavior declined from age 6 to 12. Using the same sample, Nantel-
Vivier and colleagues (2009) showed a general decline in teacher-rated
prosocial behavior between 10 to 15 years of age. The researchers also
showed a decline in the majority of children in an Italian sample of boys
and girls from 10 to 14 years of age. It is important to note, however, that
this declining trend was found only using teacher-report measures, and
a similar trend was not found when self-ratings were used.
Changes with age in adolescence also have been examined. Based on
their 1998 meta-analysis, Eisenberg and Fabes reported that whereas
adolescents exhibited more prosocial behavior than did younger
children, there was less evidence that prosocial behaviors increased
during the adolescent period (between ages 12 to 17 or 18). Indeed, some
evidence suggests that perhaps prosocial behaviors decline at some
points in adolescence and improve at later ages (Carlo, Crockett, Randall
& Roesch, 2007; Luengo Kanacri, Pastorelli, Eisenberg, Zuffiano &
Caprara, in press). Similarly, Eisenberg, Cumberland, Guthrie, Murphy,
& Shepard (2005) found self-reported prosocial behaviors to increase
between 1516 and 1718, declining in the early 20s, and then increasing
in the mid-20s.
(p.64) There is also evidence of inter-individual (correlational) stability
over time in childrens empathy and prosocial responding (Eggum et al.,
2011; Kienbaum, Volland & Ulich, 2001; Knafo, Zahn-Waxler, Van Hulle,
Robinson, & Rhee, 2008; Robinson, Zahn-Waxler, & Emde, 2001; Zhou
et al., 2002; see Eisenberg & Fabes,1998). Zahn-Waxler, Van Hulle,
Robinson, and Rhee (2008) found rank-order stability in empathy
across the second and third year of life. Empathy and prosocial
behaviors also often show stability across context. For instance, positive
relations have been found between empathy responses toward
experimenters and toward mothers (Zahn-Waxler, Van Hulle, Robinson,
& Rhee, 2008; Spinrad & Stifter, 2006)
There is, of course, much more to learn with regard to the development
of prosocial behavior and empathy-related responding. The onset of such
behaviors is still debated (Davidov, Zahn-Waxler, Roth-Hanania, &
Knafo,2013); thus, more work identifying empathy in infancy or
precursors to empathy is needed. It is also noteworthy that nearly all of
the existing relevant data on empathy/sympathy with older children and
adolescents are self-reported; thus, it is not clear how empathy and (to a
lesser degree) prosocial behavior using other measures (i.e.,
observational, behavioral) change with age. In addition, more
longitudinal work, particularly with adolescents and young adults, is
needed to understand trajectories of development across these years.

Relations with Social Competence and Maladjustment

Childrens caring and helpful behaviors are of obvious importance for
the quality of social interactions and relationships with others. It is
likely that children who exhibit sympathy have a greater understanding
of others feelings and would be expected to be sensitive, cooperative,
and socially appropriate toward others. Indeed, positive relations of
prosocial behavior and empathy-related responding to childrens social
competence have been found. Childrens prosocial behaviors have been
linked with having friends, positive social interactions, and popularity
(Cassidy, Werner, Rourke, Zubernis, & Balaraman, 2003; Clark & Ladd,
2000; Eisenberg et al.,1996a; Laible, Carlo, & Raffaelli, 2000; Rose-
Krasnor & Denham, 2009; Sebanc, 2003; Wilson, 2003). Similar
findings have been demonstrated with measures of empathy and
sympathy (Coleman & Byrd, 2003; Eisenberg et al., 1996b; Eisenberg et
al., 1998; Lerner et al, 2005; Murphy, Shepard, Eisenberg, Fabes, &
Guthrie, 1999; Sallquist, Eisenberg, Spinrad, Eggum, & Gaertner, 2009;
Zhou et al., 2002). Whereas most of the studies on the relations between
childrens moral emotions and social skills have been cross-sectional,
Zhou and colleagues (2002) demonstrated (p.65) that childrens
empathy was positively related to childrens social competence
concurrently and 2 years later.
In addition, empathy and/or sympathy have been associated with
childrens social-cognitive abilities. In particular, it is assumed that
children who understand others emotions are likely to exhibit higher
levels of caring and sympathy for others (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad,
2006; Ensor & Hughes, 2005; Denham & Couchoud, 1991). In one recent
investigation, Eggum and colleagues (2011) showed that understanding
others emotions positively predicted some indices of sympathy (i.e.,
child-reported) and was positively related to later prosocial orientation.
Similarly, empathy or sympathy have been associated with childrens
perspective-taking skillsthe ability to understand anothers thoughts,
feelings or situation (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987b; FitzGerald & White,
2003; Roberts & Strayer, 1996; Eisenberg, Zhou, & Koller, 2001), as well
as childrens ability to understand anothers mental state (i.e., theory of
mind; Eggum et al., 2011). These skills would be expected to foster
childrens social competence; thus, it is possible that sympathy is related
to childrens social competence because it is mediated by their social
understanding skills.
In contrast to the relations of caring behaviors to childrens positive
social behaviors, children who tend to be low in empathy/sympathy or
prosocial reactions have been found to be especially at risk for
aggression or externalizing problems (Batanova & Loukas, 2011;
Belgrave, Nguyen, Johnson, & Hood, 2011; Caprara, Barbaranelli,
Pastorelli, Bandura & Zimbardo, 2000; Carlo, Mestre, Samper, Tur, &
Armenta, 2011; Murphy, Shepard, Eisenberg, Fabes, & Guthrie, 1999;
Wilson, 2003; Zhou et al., 2002). Moreover, deficits in empathy and
remorse are seen as common in individuals with antisocial personality
disorders (Blair, 1999b; Blair, Jones, Clark, & Smith, 1997; Frick, 1998).
For example, Zhou et al. (2002) demonstrated that children high in
empathy tended to have fewer externalizing problems, even after
controlling for levels of childrens externalizing problems two years
earlier.
Importantly, the negative relation between aggression and prosocial
behaviors may change with age. Gill and Calkins (2003) showed higher
levels of empathy in aggressive toddlerswhich may indicate that some
level of assertion is needed to approach an unfamiliar person.
Nonetheless, the negative relation between these constructs may be
more consistent in the early school years than at younger ages.
Kienbaum (2001) showed girls, but not boys, empathy to be positively
related to aggression in a study of 5-year-olds. Hastings and colleagues
(2000) found empathy was negatively related to problem behaviors by
age 67 but not at age 45. Thus, it is possible that the negative
relations between empathy and aggression or externalizing problems are
not evident until later in development or using measures that do not
require some level of approach behavior.
(p.66) Thus, there is a growing body of literature on the relations of
empathy and prosocial behavior to childrens social competence and low
problem behaviors. It is important to note, however, that the relations of
empathy-related responding and prosocial behavior to childrens social
competence may be explained by a third variable. For example,
childrens temperamental regulation skills (i.e., effortful control) have
been related to social competence (Spinrad et al., 2006; 2007; Eisenberg
et al., 2003), low problem behaviors (Eisenberg et al., 2009b, 2010;
Eisenberg, Spinrad & Eggum, 2010), and empathy-related responding
(see below).

Temperamental Origins of Empathy-Related Responding

and Prosocial Behavior
Given the importance of empathy-related development to childrens
social competence and maladjustment, researchers have sought to
understand what might account for individual differences in childrens
sympathy and personal distress. Individual differences in temperament
have received considerable attention in this domain. Specifically, two
major components of temperament, emotionality and regulation, have
been identified as particularly important to understanding childrens
empathy and related responses. Eisenberg and colleagues (1994)
suggested that individuals who tend to experience intense and frequent
emotions and who are unable to regulate such arousal would be prone to
overarousal in response to anothers distress, and this overarousal may
result in personal distress reactions. On the other hand, individuals who
have the ability to regulate their emotions are expected to experience
sympathy, rather than personal distress, because they can prevent
themselves from becoming overly aroused.
Regulation. Childrens emotion regulation has received considerable
attention in the literature. Individual differences in effortful control, a
construct that involves the ability to shift and focus attention as needed
and to control behavior as needed, has been viewed as important set of
abilities contributing to emotion regulation (Eisenberg & Spinrad,
2004). Children high in effortful control would be expected to be able to
regulate their emotions and, consequently, to be prone to express
sympathy and prosocial behavior when confronted with anothers
distress.
Indeed, dispositional regulation or effortful control has been has been
positively related to sympathy/empathy (Eisenberg et al., 1996b, Guthrie
et al., 1997; Ladd & Profilet, 1996; Murphy, Shepard, Eisenberg, Fabes, &
Guthrie, 1999; Panfile & Laible, 2012; Rothbart, Ahadi, & Hershey, 1994).
For example, Eisenberg, Michalik, and colleagues (2007) showed that
high levels of effortful (p.67) control and growth in effortful control
were related to high levels of sympathy in adolescence, especially for
boys. Similar relations have been found between emotion regulation and
childrens prosocial behavior (Diener & Kim, 2004; Eisenberg et al.,
1996a).
Situational measures of regulation also have been used to understand
the role of regulation in childrens empathy and prosocial behavior. In
one recent investigation, resting RSA (respiratory sinus arrhythmia) and
RSA suppression (reduction in RSA to a challenge) were respectively
used as markers reflecting the ability to regulate internal bodily
processes and the ability to cope with challenge in a longitudinal sample
of toddlers from 18 to 30 months of age (Liew et al., 2011). Results
demonstrated that resting RSA was positively, albeit weakly, associated
with empathic concern, and RSA suppression predicted higher prosocial
behavior over time.
There is also evidence that personal distress reactions are related to
relatively low regulation abilities (Eisenberg, Fabes, et al., 1998; Guthrie
et al., 1997; Valiente et al., 2004). For example, the predicted negative
relation between personal distress and regulation has been found using
physiological measures of personal distress, such heart rate acceleration
(Guthrie et al., 1997). Further, using parents reports and observed
regulation (combined), Valiente and colleagues (2004) showed a
negative relation between regulation and personal distress when viewing
an empathy-inducing film. Thus, overall, there appears to be ample
evidence that regulatory processes are involved in childrens experiences
of sympathy versus personal distress.
Emotionality. Researchers have also been interested in the role of
emotions and emotional reactivity on childrens moral behavior. As
hypothesized by Eisenberg and Fabes (1992), childrens intense and
frequent negative emotions have been associated with relatively low
sympathy (Eisenberg et al., 1996b; Roberts & Strayer, 1996).
Dispositional negative emotionality has been negatively related to
prosocial behavior (see Diener & Kim, 2004; Strayer & Roberts, 2004).
Thus, emotionality has been shown to be an important correlate of
empathy-related responding; however, distinct emotions (i.e., anger,
sadness, fear, joy) also likely contribute to empathy and prosocial
behavior.
Personal distress reactions have been related to childrens fear reactivity,
and researchers have suggested that such findings may be due to fearful
childrens tendency to become distressed when confronted with an
evocative situation (Rothbart, Ahadi, & Hershey, 1994; Liew et al., 2011;
Spinrad & Stifter, 2006; Young, Fox, & Zahn-Waxler, 1999). Liew and
colleagues (2011) found that toddlers fear responses were positively
related to personal distress reactions. Similarly, Spinrad and Stifter
(2006) found fear in infancy to be related to higher personal distress
reactions toward a strangers simulated distress 8 months later.
(p.68) Relations between sympathy or empathy and childrens fear
have been somewhat mixed. Spinrad and Stifter (2006) unexpectedly
showed positive associations between fear in infancy and toddlers
concerned attention, perhaps indicating that fear predisposes children to
at least some level of attunement with others emotions. Moreover,
researchers have demonstrated that fearful children were likely to
experience guilta potential index of moral self (Kochanska, Gross, Lin,
& Nichols, 2002). However, other researchers have found negative
relations or no relations between fear/behavioral inhibition and
empathy in young children (Liew et al.,2011; van der Mark, van
IJzendoorn, & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2002; Young, Fox, & Zahn-
Waxler, 1999). Thus, it is somewhat unclear whether fearfulness
promotes or inhibits childrens empathic sympathy reactions, and the
relations may change with age or measurement.
Few relations between childrens fear and their prosocial tendencies
have been found, although Liew and colleagues (2011) showed that low
fearfulness at 18 months longitudinally predicted 30-month prosocial
behavior toward a distressed experimenter, even after controlling for 18-
month helping. Related to fear, childrens shyness also has been
negatively related to childrens prosocial behavior and empathy in
children (Rothbart, Ahadi, & Hershey, 1994; Russell, Hart, Robinson &
Olsen, 2003; Young et al., 1999). In one study, shyness was negative
associated with sympathy for girls, but not for boys (Eisenberg, Fabes,
Karbon, Murphy, Carlo & Wosinski, 1996). These findings are likely due
the fact that children often need to approach the distressed victim when
behaving prosocially.
The association between childrens sadness and their empathy and
prosocial behavior is also somewhat unclear. It is possible that sadness
may evoke feelings of sympathy and in turn, prosocial behavior. Indeed,
in work with adults, sadness has been positively related to sympathy
(Eisenberg et al., 1994). Edwards and colleagues (2013) showed that
sadness predicted higher levels of preschoolers sympathy across a year,
even when controlling for prior levels of sympathy. These findings
suggest that dispositional sadness may increase childrens recognition of
anothers sadness, perspective taking, and experiencing sympathy. This
study is noteworthy because it is the only study, to our knowledge, to
examine the relations of dispositional sadness to toddlers sympathy
using longitudinal and multimethod data.
Similar to the work on childrens aggression and externalizing problems
noted above, childrens anger and frustration have been inversely related
to prosocial behaviors and empathy-related responding (Carlo, Roesch,
& Melby, 1998; Diener & Kim, 2004; Roberts & Strayer, 1996; Rothbart,
Ahadi, & Hershey, 1994; Strayer & Roberts, 2004). Thus, intense anger
may reflect overarousal and low regulatory skills, undermining
sympathy reactions.
(p.69) Finally, childrens positive emotionality is thought to be
positively related to sympathy and prosocial behavior (Eisenberg, Fabes,
& Spinrad, 2006). Positive emotionality may foster childrens prosocial
behavior, perhaps through their social competent behavior, or perhaps
because content individuals are better able to focus on others emotions
than are those who are burdened by intense negative emotionality.
Indeed, Sallquist, Eisenberg, Spinrad, Eggum, and Gaertner (2009)
studied positive emotion and positive empathy (feelings of happiness
upon observing anothers joy). Childrens observed positive emotionality
and mothers reports of positive emotion were positively related to
mothers reports of young childrens positive empathy.
Eisenberg and Fabes (1992) suggested that emotionality and regulation
may interact to explain childrens sympathy and/or prosocial behavior.
That is, optimally regulated children would be expected to experience
sympathy, regardless of their level of emotional intensity. On the other
hand, for children who are prone to negative emotionality or intense
negative emotions, personal distress reactions would be anticipated
unless they have the ability to regulate their emotions. Consistent with
this notion, Diener and Kim (2004) showed an interaction between
anger-proneness and childrens regulatory skills in predicting prosocial
behavior, such that well-regulated children were high on prosocial
behavior regardless of their level of anger-proneness. However, for
children with low regulation skills, higher scores on anger predicted
lower prosocial behaviors. Similarly, Eisenberg et al. (1996b) found that
children highest in sympathy were high in emotional intensity (for both
positive and negative emotions) and well regulated (also see Eisenberg
et al., 1998). These initial findings are intriguing although more support
for these ideas is needed.

Conclusions
Research indicates that prosocial behaviors and empathy/sympathy
generally increases with age until mid-childhood or adolescence and that
individual differences are related to temperament. Prosocial behaviors
and empathy-related responding are predictive of childrens social
competence and low problem behaviors. There is still much to explore
with relation to morality from a developmental perspective.
In thinking about the origins of childrens prosocial behavior and
empathy-related responding, researchers rightly assume that such
behaviors are affected by heredity as well as their relationships with
others. Due to space constraints, these issues have not been considered
in this chapter. A future direction for research is to better understand
the genetic contributions to childrens empathy and prosocial
responding (see Knafo & Israel,2010). The ways that parents can (p.70)
encourage caring behaviors in their children also has received
considerable attention (see Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006);
however, more research focusing on how parenting and/or the
environment moderates the contribution of genetics is needed
(Bakermans-Kranenburg & Van IJzendoorn, 2011; Knafo, Israel &
Ebstein, 2011).
Another area for further study is to focus research on the role of culture
in childrens empathy-related responding and prosocial behavior. It is
important to understand whether the development, associations, and
origins of caring generalize to minority populations. For example, the
relations of parenting and childrens regulatory abilities to Indonesian
childrens prosocial behaviors have been studied, and they appear to be
somewhat similar to those with children in Western societies
(Eisenberg, Liew & Pidada, 2001; 2004). Further, childrens prosocial
behavior and empathy toward members of disadvantaged groups should
be examined. In one recent investigation, European-American children
(ages 513) felt more positive about helping an unfamiliar child from a
racial in-group versus a racial out-group (African-American) as well as a
greater obligation to help a child from the racial in-group (Makariev &
Lagattuta, in press). In addition, interactions between minority and
majority children may have complex effects on childrens prosocial
behavior/sympathy: In Indonesia, 7th graders from a minority group
with at least one friend from the majority culture were more
sympathetic and prosocial (Eisenberg et al., 2009). The factors that are
responsible for childrens empathy toward members of out-groups (e.g.,
socialization strategies) and ways that across-group relationships affect
prosocial development have clear implications for promoting moral
action in our society.
Finally, it is important to understand whether the tendency for
individuals to care and help others may be explained by a moral
personality trait. Very little is known about the role of empathy-related
responding in emergence of a moral self (Kochanska, Koenig, Barry,
Kim, & Yoon, 2010). However, there is evidence of some consistency in
childrens moral motivations and sympathy (see Malti, Gummerum,
Keller, & Buchmann,2009; Malti & Krettenauer, in press). Moreover,
higher levels of childrens and adolescents moral reasoning about
prosocial moral dilemmas, as (i.e., hypothetical dilemmas about whether
to help another at a cost to the self), as well as other-oriented prosocial
moral reasoning, tend to be related to higher levels of empathy and
especially sympathy (Eisenberg, Carlo, Murphy, & Van Court, 1995;
Eisenberg et al., 1987; Eisenberg, Zhou, & Koller, 2001). Future research
should explore this possibility and the ways to foster these traits in
young children.

Work on this chapter was partially supported by a grant from the

National Institute of Child Health and Development (1R01HD068522).
Empathy, Justice, and Social Change
Martin L. Hoffman
Empathy is no longer just an academic topic. Its in the news. President
Obama decided the Supreme Court needs empathic justices who
understand that justice isnt about some abstract legal theory [but also]
about how our laws affect the daily realities of peoples lives and who are
capable of understanding and identifying with peoples hopes and
struggles as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and
outcomes. Some extreme conservatives apparently took this as code for
compassion for the poor and higher taxes for every one else and declared
a war on empathy (Froomkin, 2009). His remarks opened a can of
worms that spilled over the mediasee Fish (2009) for over 300 letters
explaining, criticizing, or praising them in the New York Times online.
Besides politics, books and articles regularly appear that suggest how to
cultivate empathy, and present it as a solution to the worlds problems.
Rifkin (2010) claims society has evolved over the centuries and we
already live in an empathic civilization, albeit part of a race with
entropy (global warming, climate change, carbon dioxide), which we
must win to avoid civilizations collapse and save the planet. Pinker
(2011) says we have less violence per capita than ever before due partly
to increased empathy (and self-control, morality, reason). An obvious
counter is there may be more empathy now than before (p.72) and a
big drop in per capita violence, but this means little and provides small
comfort in light of the millions of lives lost in the Holocaust, other
genocides, two world wars and continued warfare hot and cold against
nations, terrorism, drugsall in the last century (for a full critique see
Snyder, 2012). This critical line of reasoning led some to conclude that
despite many experiments showing empathy contributes to helping
distressed others, it is overrated and just a sideshow for societys real
driving forces (Brooks, 2011). We may ask, is empathy really overrated, a
sideshow? It surely isnt the main event. But it is not a sideshow: some
respected theologians come close to equating it with God: The true
hallmark of Christian living is mercy [which is] . . . entering into the
chaos of someone else (Keenan, 2007).
To throw light on the matter, and perhaps muddy the waters a bit, I
review what we know not about empathys progress through the ages
but the processes involved in its contributions to society and cultural
change in the modern age. I focus mainly on empathic distress, its
arousal, and its impact on laws. Laws are arguably the major vehicle of
social change. They are designed to be rational and impervious to the
influence of empathy and other emotions. This goes back, at least, to
Platos version of the speech Socrates gave in 399 B.C. as he defended
himself against charges of corrupting the young: . . . facing the utmost
danger, I do not think it is right for a man to appeal to the jury or to get
himself acquitted by doing so: he ought to inform them of the facts and
convince them by argument. The jury does not sit to dispense justice as
a favor, but to decide where justice lies, and the oath which they have
sworn is not to show favor at their own discretion, but to return a just
and lawful verdict (Plato, 1892).
If empathy affects laws it surely affects other aspects of society, but its
impact on laws alone profoundly affects the countrys political and
economic institutions and thus its history. Other vehicles of change, like
newspapers, the media, and religion play a role too, but laws are less a
matter of individual choice, and once enacted they affect everyones
behavior. My focus here is laws that had a significant, enduring impact
on social and cultural change. I draw heavily from my own work on
empathy, which has evolved over the years (1976, 2000, 2008, 2011),
and is here updated and dealing with empathys arousal, development,
contributions to justice, and its limitations, as well as the law-review
literature.

Empathy-Arousal Modes
There appear to be five empathy-arousing modes. Threemimicry,
conditioning, direct associationare automatic and preverbal. Two
mediated association and perspective-takingare typically voluntary and
involve language and cognition.
(p.73) Mimicry was intuitively understood two and a half centuries ago
by Adam Smith (1759/1976):The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer
on the slack rope, naturally writhe and twist and balance their own
bodies as they see him do (pp. 4,10). It was more precisely defined 150
years later by Lipps (1903b) as an innate, involuntary, isomorphic
response to anothers expression of emotion that occurs in two steps
operating in close sequence: one automatically, rapidly, and without
conscious awareness changes ones facial expression, voice, and posture
in synchrony with slightest changes in the models facial, vocal, postural
expressions of feeling (Dimberg, Thunberg, & Elmehed, 2000); the
resulting muscle movements trigger afferent feedback to the brain,
producing feelings in observers that match the models.
Conditioning. Empathic distress becomes a conditioned response when
ones actual distress is paired with anothers expression of distress. This
happens in infancy when a mothers distress stiffens her body and is
transferred to the infant in the course of physical handling. The
mothers facial and verbal expressions of distress accompanying her
body stiffening then become conditioned stimuli that can evoke distress
in the child even in the absence of physical contact; and they can
generalize to the facial and verbal expressions of distress by anyone,
which can subsequently arouse distress in the infant.
Direct association makes the connection between a victims expression
of distress or cues in the victims situation and the observers own
painful past experience, without requiring conditioning. Having
experienced separation oneself may be all it takes to empathize with
someone in the midst a distressing separation. Likewise, only if you
have experienced hangover can you empathize with those who wake up
in terrible agony because of having drunk too much; only if you have
had children can you adopt a mothers perspective; and only if you have
slept outside can you understand a homeless person (Hakansson,
2003).
Empathy aroused by these modes is passive, involuntary, based on
surface cues, and requires little if any cognitive processing and
awareness that the source of ones distress is anothers pain, not ones
own. I describe them here in detail because they have been neglected in
the empathy literature. Though limited to empathy with simple
emotions and victims who are visibly present, they are important
because they allow infants to have an empathic response whether or not
they know the source of their pain is anothers distress. More important
here is that all three modes continue to operate and give empathy an
involuntary dimension throughout life. Most of their limitations are
gradually overcome by language and cognitive development, especially
selfother differentiation, which support the cognitively advanced
modes and enable empathy with subtle emotions such as sadness, guilt,
disappointment in oneself, and victims who are absent.
(p.74) Verbally mediated association. Here the victims distress is
communicated and connected to ones own painful past experience
through language, which makes it possible to empathize with someone
who is absent (a letter from the victim, someone elses description of his
plight, a newspaper article).
Perspective-taking. David Hume wrote that because people are
constituted similarly and have similar life experiences, imagining
oneself in anothers place converts the others situation into mental
images that evoke the same feeling in oneself (1751/1957). Adam Smith
went more deeply into the experience of empathy: By the imagination
we place ourselves in the others situation, we conceive ourselves
enduring all the same torments, enter, as it were, into his body, and
become in some measure the same person with him and thence form
some idea of the sensations and even feel something which, though
weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them (1759/1976, p. 261).
Modern research, begun in the 1950s, reveals three types of perspective-
taking: (a) self-focusedimagining how one would feel if the stimuli
impinging on the victim were impinging on oneself (Humes and Smiths
type), especially when enhanced by association with similar painful
events in ones own past, and to some extent independent of changes in
the victims facial expression, voice, or posture. A widely televised
example is the ex-wife of New Jerseys former disgraced governor
describing how she felt watching the televised scene of the stoic-looking
wife standing off to the side as her husband, the governor of New York,
apologized for a sexual indiscretion (Celizic, 2008): My heart ached for
her when I was watching her. I could see the pain in her face, and I
certainly know what that feels like. Shes there physically, but Im sure
shes not absorbing anything thats going on. Self-focused perspective-
taking can produce as much, at times even more, pain than that felt by
the victim (see discussion below of vicarious trauma in therapists). The
second type of perspective-taking (b) other-focusedfocusing ones
attention on the victims feelings, life condition, or behavior in similar
situations, sometimes enhanced by categorical information
(stereotypes) and theories of how people behave in similar situations
seems to arouse less intense empathic distress than self-focused
(Batson, Early, & Salvarini, 1997). This may be because it is more
cognitively demanding and focused more on the others experience and
less on evoking associations with ones own painful past. In the third
type (c) combined self/other focus, one focuses on both the victim and
oneself, simultaneously or sequentially. This may be the most frequent
mode because people find it difficult to confine their focus on the other
without drifting into their own thoughts and feelings. It is especially
important for empathys contribution in the real world because it
benefits from both the emotional intensity of self-focused and the
enlarged scope and sustained attention to the victim afforded by other-
focused. It is instructive to note that although most people (p.75) can
take anothers perspective, actually doing so is culture dependent (Wu &
Keysar, 2007).
Just as the preverbal modes enable an automatic primitive empathy, the
higher order modes enable mature empathy to develop, beginning with a
veridical empathy that more or less matches the victims feelings in the
immediate situation and progressing to empathy that takes account of
his life condition, situation, personal history, and most important for
present purposes, empathy with a victim group or category.
To summarize, the five arousal modes can operate alone or in any
combination. Together they enable empathy with whatever distress cues
are available: a victims facial, vocal, or postural cues can be picked up
through any or all modes if one is nearby with a clear view of the victim;
situational cues can be picked up through conditioning and association
even if one cannot see or hear the victim; distress expressed verbally, in
writing, or by someone else can arouse empathy through the more
cognitive modes. Multiple modes not only enable but often compel one
to respond to anothers distress empathicallyinstantly, automatically,
with little or no awareness. Even the cognitive modes, often drawn out,
voluntarily controlled and involving reflection, can kick in immediately
if one attends closely to the victim. This multi-determined quality makes
empathic distress a reliable response and may explain why it has
consistently been found to motivate helping others, even strangers, in
distress (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987)though not competitors or people
one envies or actively dislikes, in which case one may blame the victim
or feel pleasure in his distress (Hareli & Weiner, 2002). It may also
explain why empathy may have survived natural selection (de Waal,
2012; Hoffman, 1981) and has a hereditary component (Zahn-Waxler,
Robinson, & Emde, 1992).
A note about mirror neurons. In the mid-nineties when a team of Italian
researchers noticed that certain brain cells were activated both when a
monkey performed an action and when that monkey watched another
monkey perform that same action, mirror neurons were discovered.
Since that time mirror neurons have also been found to operate in
humans, not only for motor acts and intended motor acts, but also by
communicating with the brains limbic system they operate in relation
to certain emotions: similar neural pathways are activated when one
feels disgust and sees the facial grimace of disgust on someone else
(Wicker, Keysers et al., 2003). Some researchers assume the same is
true for other motor-expressive (facial expression, voice, posture)
emotions like pain and anger. If true this would show mirror neurons to
be the neural substrate of mimicry. And some assume future research
will show mirror neurons underlie empathy with any emotion.
For now, there are things about empathy in the real world, where causes
of anothers state are often outside the situation or ambiguous, that
mirror (p.76) neurons cant easily explain: empathic anger toward an
aggressor on behalf of a victim who doesnt feel anger, empathy with a
group like the quotation below from my students empathy with
American slaves, responses like this from Oliner and Oliners (1988)
interviews of Germans who rescued Jews from the Nazis: I think there
was a double feeling: a feeling of compassion for Jews and anger toward
the Germans (p. 118). Mirror neurons also cant explain empathy with
someone whose feelings belie his life condition (a child happily playing,
unaware he is terminally ill). Mirror neuron activation might actually
interfere with processing life-condition information about the victim
and thinking of absent or future victims, as in criminal court trials (see
below). Finally, what we knew about empathy before mirror neurons
discoveryits developmental stages, arousal modes, shaping by casual
attribution, biases, and other limitationswould still apply, as would the
external events that arouse emotions in others that we empathize with.
Mirror neurons may be part of empathic responses but not an
explanation or cause.
What then do mirror neurons buy us? Rochat (2001) criticizes
psychologists who seem to gain intellectual comfort by increasingly
seeking neurosciences molecular and mechanistic high tech stamp of
approval. But there is a good side to this: the idea that all humans share
mirror neurons and mirror neurons cause empathy has helped publicize
empathy beyond the university. As Rochat also notes, knowing monkeys
and humans share mirror neurons helps substantiate evolutionary
continuity in empathic feeling. Some neuroscientists suggest that
spreading the word about mirror neurons may help break down barriers
between peoples and foster world peace (Iacaboni, 2007). So, though we
always assumed empathy has a solid neural base and mirror neurons
may not do much more than tell us what that base is, knowing there is a
base and what it is might ultimately contribute to positive social change.
It might also have medical value, for example, helping find a cure for
autism and other empathy-deficit disorders.

Empathic Over-Arousal
Empathic distress increases with the intensity of the victims actual
distress but can become so aversiveempathic over-arousalthat
bystanders shift attention to their own distress, leave or blame the
victim, or think of other things to turn off the image of the victim
(Hoffman, 1978). Strayer (1993) showed 513-year-olds film clips of
distressed children (unjustly punished; forcibly separated from family;
disabled child climbing stairs). The subjects empathic distress and
attention to the victim increased with intensity of the victims distress
until it reached the level of the victims distress, after which the
subjects (p.77) focus shifted to themselves. Bandura and Rosenthal
(1966) gave adults watching someone being given electric shocks a drug
that intensified their empathic distress, which they reduced with
distracting thoughts and attending to lab details. People are especially
vulnerable to empathic over-arousal when they feel unable to reduce
victims distress or keep their empathic distress within a tolerable range.
Nursing trainees new to hospital wards were so empathically over-
aroused by terminally ill patients that they tried to avoid them, but
changed when they found they could improve patients quality of life
(Williams, 1989). Similarly, children who exert emotional control and
are taught coping strategies for handling anxiety at home are less
vulnerable to empathic over-arousal, can keep empathic distress within
a tolerable range, and maintain their focus on the victims distress
(Eisenberg, Fabes, Schaller, Carlo, & Miller, 1991; Valiente, Eisenberg, et
al. 2004).
Empathic over-arousal and vicarious traumatization. I originally
advanced the empathic over-arousal concept to explain bystanders
turning away from victims. This doesnt apply to people who are highly
committed (witnesses, see below) or whose role requires staying and
helping (clinicians, nurses, rescue workers). There is a substantial
literature on trauma clinicians compassion fatigue or vicarious
trauma (Figley, 1995; Pearlman & Saakvitne, 1995), which I suggest
may be due to empathic over-arousal (Hoffman, 2000, 2002). I asked
125 clinicians how they felt and coped in their most recent therapy
session with a trauma patient.1 They reported lots of empathic over-
arousal with cognitive disruptions and horrible images, nightmares, and
physical symptoms that were often hard to shake off afterward ( . . . I
felt the sadness re-surge and envelope me . . . almost impossible to
concentrate and attend properly; . . . My neck felt strained, tired,
stomach ached, dizzy). Proximal causes of the empathic over-arousal
were patients facial, vocal, and postural expressions of pain (tears,
description of childhood events, crying why dont they understand how
what they do affects me?); vivid trauma narratives that evoked painful
images (I still see the picture I saw as she spoke of the man who hurt
her, he looks so malevolent . . . I imagined her small body size with a
grown adult, her grimace of pain); a calm demeanor that masks intense
suffering (Oh my God hes speaking as though he were describing the
weather [drunken father threatened him and mother with gun] . . . hes
fully dissociated from the feelings, been wounded so badly). In some
cases the clinicians empathic distress is more intense than the patients
distress that evoked it, though of course not the patients original
trauma.
Patients traumas sometimes evoke images and feelings of distress
associated with therapists own past traumas (counter-transference),
which can divert (p.78) their attention from the patient. This can be
harmful, but it can also be helpful when the therapist uses his own
trauma constructively, as in these instances:
His pain/suffering [car sideswiped and crashed in wall] have
deprived him of hope. I have felt hopeless in life so I can relate to
this. I have overcome hopelessness and I believe he can too. He
knows this and in effect he is both asking me to heal him and teach
him how. Because of my experience I feel I can help him do both.
 Same thing happened to me [witnessed car-crash death of young
daughter]. Had image of her car crash scene, her smiling child, my
crash scene, my smiling daughter. Patients experience as a whole
evokes my memories, contributes to feelings/images that continue
to resonate forever, but its also cathartic, enlightening, and has
positive outcomes for people who have had the trauma. Burnout
occurs with people who have not had trauma: they fear it, so keep
distance from those who have.
Told very vividly [repeated abuse in childhood by alcoholic father
and recent beating by husband], was very disturbing. History of
physical violence in my own family, so these images keep
reverberating with me and Im trying to use them to get deep
understanding of her feelings in her current situation.
The coping strategies clinicians use to keep empathic over-arousal under
control vary: gaining distance by imagining a patients trauma narrative
is just a movie; splitting ones focus so that one is partly an objective
observer; taking time out by pushing trauma images aside, thinking
about other things, then regrouping; reminding oneself of past successes
with patients. They also use breathing and other relaxation techniques,
consult with colleagues and supervisors, talk it over with their own
therapists, spouses, friends (If I cant get the terrible images out of my
mind I seek co-workers for debriefing), join or start self-help groups, do
volunteer community service, start a strenuous exercise routine. One
clinician (a witness?see below) took to political action on behalf of
people with her patients problem (I pictured that terrified child who
had been physically and sexually abused, neglected, being threatened
with removal from her foster/adoptive family. I had thoughts of lashing
out at the system, and as result of many such cases, I did work to change
it).
Trauma clinicians empathic over-arousal is part of an ongoing process
of interaction between intense empathic distress and attempts to control
it in order to maintain ones professional focus, keep going personally,
and help the patient. Something similar though less dramatic may
happen with any clinician whose patients describe painful though not
quite traumatic events. Being (p.79) a clinician is thus a risky business
and can be hazardous to ones health (several in our sample called
patient traumas toxic, infectious, like a virus passed from listener to
listener entrenched in mind like a foreign body.). That most clinicians
stay with their patients despite bouts of intense empathic pain suggests
clinical interviews are a type of prosocial moral encounter (see
Hoffman2000 for other types), and being a clinician is a moral
profession. The same may be said for other health professionals and
caretakers who treat people in pain on a regular basis.
Empathic over-arousal and vicarious trauma may be experienced by
anyone daily exposed to descriptive news reports of people in pain
throughout the world. This fits the bystander category where one can
easily turn away, but it extends the scope of intense empathic distress
and near-empathic-over-arousal experience to include most Americans
and others with access to the media. This points up the enormous reach
of empathy beyond the laboratory. Empathys actual impact on society,
mediated by laws, is discussed later.

Development of Mature Adult Empathy

Empathy is an emotional state triggered by anothers emotional state or
situation: one feels what the other feels or may reasonably be expected
to feel in the others situation. Since our topic concerns laws and other
change agents dealing with people in distress (due to violence, fraud,
injustice), our focus is empathic distress. Mature empathic distress has
an active metacognitive dimension: one feels distressed but knows its a
response to anothers misfortune, not ones own, and has an idea of how
the other feels. This requires a cognitive sense of oneself and others as
separate beings with independent inner states (feelings, thoughts,
perceptions) that are only partly reflected in outward behavior, and with
separate identities and life conditions.
Empathy develops naturally as part of the interaction of arousal modes,
selfother differentiation, and language and cognitive development, but
also in response to parents who show affection, model empathic
behavior, and use induction discipline (Hoffman & Saltzstein, 1967;
Krevans & Gibbs, 1996). Before 3 or 4 years one can empathize mainly
through the preverbal modes, with little or no metacognitive awareness.2
Empathy keeps developing along with reflective selfother
differentiation in six or more stages. Ill skip the first three except the
developmental transition most relevant to mature adult empathy.
(p.80) This transition occurs at around 2 years. As part of the childs
growing sense of self and others as separate beings, empathic distress is
transformed partly into sympathetic distress: the child continues to feel
empathic distress, more or less matching the others feeling, but now
adds a reactive feeling of sympathetic distress or compassion for the
other. From then on, empathic distress has a sympathetic component
that gives it a clearly prosocial dimension: one wants to reduce the
others distress, not only ones own empathic distress.
Empathic/sympathetic distress would be a more exact but cumbersome
term, so please note empathic distress past toddlerhood and through life
includes feeling for as well as with victims. (For evidence and analysis of
this process see Hoffman, 2007). What follows is not a strict stage
sequence but a loose description of empathys mature development.
Veridical empathy. Beyond toddlerhood children begin having a clear
sense of ones body as a physical entity that exists outside ones
subjective self and can be seen by others. They also become aware that
others have inner states independent of their own, and they can
recognize and empathize with anothers feelings, take anothers
perspective, and offer help that fits the others needs rather than their
own. Their empathic ability becomes more complex with the growing
awareness (a) that people can display emotions not felt and feel
emotions not displayed and (b) increased understanding of the causes,
consequences, and correlates of different emotions, which allows them
to empathize not only with simple but subtle distress feelings such as
disappointment, fear of failing, low self-esteem, desire for independence,
and even fear of losing face if one accepts help.
Empathic distress over anothers life condition. By mid childhood,
around 57 years, children show signs of knowing a persons current
feelings can be influenced by past experience (Lagatutta & Wellman,
2001), along with the emerging conception of oneself and others as
continuous persons with separate histories and identities. By 9 or 10
they are aware that others feel joy, anger, sadness, fear not only in the
immediate situation but also in their lives beyond the situation. And as
they get older they respond empathically not only to anothers distress
in the immediate situation but also to the other as a full person,
including what they know about his chronically happy or distressful life,
met and unmet goals, which may seem intuitively to be as good an index
of wellbeing as his present state. They can thus empathize with someone
who is chronically ill, emotionally deprived, hopelessly poor, regardless
of his immediate state. If he seems sad, knowing his life is sad may
intensify ones empathic distress; if he seems happy the contradiction
may make one stop short and rather than feel empathic joy one may
realize a sad life is a better index of wellbeing and respond with
empathic sadness or a mixture of joy and sadness (Szporn, 2001).
Mature empathy is thus a response to a network of cues from anothers
behavior, emotional expression, immediate situation, and life condition.
(p.81) Empathy for distressed groups. When children start forming
social concepts and classifying people, they can comprehend the plight
not only of individuals but also groups or classes of people (e.g.,
chronically ill, homeless, slaves, victims and survivors of natural
disasters, the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, war, terrorism, prejudice,
unfair laws). They are thus able to empathize not only with an
individuals but also with a groups distressing life condition (empathy
narrative). The two may go together, as when empathy generalizes from
an individual to a group, for example from the famous photograph over a
dozen years ago of a burned baby in a firemans arms, to all Oklahoma
City bombing victims. Indeed, it may be difficult to empathize directly
with an abstract mass without first empathizing with an individual
victim and then generalizing to the group. This is also an example of
what I call media-enhanced empathic distress for a group, which must
figure largely in any theory of empathys spread throughout society.
As with a single victim, one can empathize with a groups life condition
that contradicts the groups behavior: When I read accounts of slaves in
America who were extremely religious and joyful in religious
ceremonies, I feel sort of happy that they were doing something that
gave them a sense of joy, even ecstasy, but I am reminded that they were
oppressed and this is a false sense of joy or hope in the midst of a
distressing, unfair life. I feel happy that theyre happy despite being
enslaved, but I feel bad for them too because this religious hope or joy is
really a false sense of security. It was a bitter irony that they took joy
from the promised salvation of this religion, given them by the slave
owners whom they wanted to be liberated from (from a students term
paper).
Empathy with a groups life condition can merge with ones stereotypes,
attitudes, and developing ideologies regarding groups. This gives
empathy added depth, broadens its scope, and adds to its durability
(embedding an emotion in a cognitive structure makes it more durable),
while adding motive force to the attitudes and ideologies.
Empathys depth. Empathy research has dealt mainly with responding to
anothers immediate emotional stateneglecting how long the empathy
lasts, what turns it off, its rapid shifts and changes due to causal
attribution, and its depth. I deal here with depth, which pertains to an
empathic responses intensity, duration, and extent to which it
penetrates ones motive system and changes ones behavior beyond the
immediate situation. Kaplan (2005), working on empathic responses to
trauma in visual media, introduces two concepts at opposite ends of the
depth continuum: empty empathy and witnessing. Empty empathy
results from brief exposure to trauma images presented in rapid
succession, allowing only fleeting empathic responses, each cancelled by
the next and thus devoid of motivation to help victims. In witnessing
(see also Laub, 1995), one is so intensely moved by exposure to
anothers trauma (p.82) as to become fully committed to help, often
altering ones life course to do so. Between the two is vicarious trauma
not only in clinicians, but also anyone repeatedly exposed to trauma
victims. Kaplan sees this as widespread, due to our living in a trauma
culture where one is constantly bombarded with media images of
people worldwide being traumatized by wars and natural disasters.
Here are five examples of witnessing that show empathys potential
contribution to social change (the first three are discussed in detail
later): (a) Harriet Beecher Stowes favorite sons death mobilized her
empathy for slaves into the driving force behind writing Uncle Toms
Cabin, which helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War. (b) Lyndon
Johnsons deeply felt empathy for poor Mexicans and Blacks contributed
to his pushing through Americas first civil rights law; (c) Tsar
Alexanders empathy for serfs contributed to his emancipating them
throughout Russia. Less well known is (d) Susan Sontags self-described
experience of shock, numbness, and being changed forever by images
of atrocity at age 12 when first exposed to Holocaust photos. It affected
her life work, much of which featured mass suffering, culminating in
Regarding the Pain of Others (Sontag, 2003). And (e) Craig Kielburger
(1998), award-winning Canadian author and Noble Peace Prize nominee,
also 12 when he saw a life-changing newspaper photo and read the
narrative of a Pakistan boy who was bonded into labor at age 5, escaped
from a factory where he knotted carpets as a virtual slave, traveled
widely speaking against child labor, and was finally murdered. The photo
and story so empathically disturbed Kielburger that he went to the
library, called various organizations to learn about child labor, traveled
to Pakistan, and eventually founded and raised money for Free the
Children, the worlds largest network of children helping children
through education.
While empty empathy may be a film-and-television-mediated
phenomenon, witnessing and depth of feeling in real life as well as
mediated contexts are worth intensive study. As the above examples and
what follows show, they have great potential influence on laws that
change society and alter the course of history. As for witnessings place
in empathy theory, I suggest this: one is overwhelmed with empathic
distress but instead of turning away from the distressing image, like
most bystanders, one feels compelled to act on the victims behalf not
only in the present but also beyond it, often for a long time and at great
personal cost. This is not very different from how trauma clinicians
handle empathic over-arousal. Witnessing might be included as
empathys final development stage.

Empathy, Laws, and Society

Laws are not necessarily prosocial or moral, but they qualify as both
when peoples lives and welfare, and therefore empathy, are implicated.
Empathy is (p.83) clearly implicated when empathic anger and
empathy over the unjust plight of people victimized by existing laws or
absence of protective laws motivate someone to use his energy, skill, and
position in society to help get laws passed or changed. It is also clearly
implicated wwhen empathic feelings lead judges to make courtroom
decisions partly based on empathy for laws victims and potential
victims.
Causal attribution and empathic feeling of injustice. It is long known
that humans, children as well as adults, abhor an explanatory vacuum
and spontaneously attribute causality, or when there is ambiguity they
ask for causal explanations of events (Hickling & Wellman, 2001;
Weiner, 1985). They presumably attribute causality on witnessing
someone in distress. I have written at length about causal attributions
shaping of empathic distress (Hoffman, 2000). Briefly, (1) if the victim
caused his own distress, ones empathic distress is diminished or
vanishes. Empathic distress becomes, at least partly (2) sympathetic
distressone sympathizes and wants to helpwhen the cause is beyond
the victims control (illness, accident, loss) or when the cause is
unknown, as in the developmental transition discussed earlier, as well as
the experimental research showing empathys contribution to prosocial
behavior; (3) empathy-based guilt when one has caused the others
distress (Etxebarria & Apodaca, 2005), when ones efforts to help have
not alleviated the victims distress (Batson & Weeks, 1996), or when one
has not tried to help and thereby allowed the victim to suffer:
anticipating guilt over inaction may have motivated some 1960s Civil
Rights activists (Keniston, 1968) and Germans who saved Jews from
Nazis (Oliner & Oliner, 1988); (4) empathic anger when someone else is
the cause, even if the victim is not angry and one feels empathic anger
toward the attacker on the victims behalf; and (5) empathy over
injustice when there is a discrepancy between a victims fate and what
he deserves.
Real-life events may produce a rapid succession of causal attributions,
shaping and changing ones empathic feeling, even in response to a
moments exposure to a single scene, as this example shows. A male
graduate student described a recent event where he saw the driver of an
expensive sports car being wheeled in a stretcher to an ambulance. He
did not see the accident, driving by just afterward: I first assumed it was
probably a rich smart-alec kid driving while drunk or on dope and I did
not feel for him. I then thought this might be unfair, maybe he was
rushing because of some emergency, suppose he was taking someone to
the hospital, and then I felt for him. But then I thought, that was no
excuse, he should have been more careful even if it was an emergency,
and my feeling for him decreased. Then I realized the guy might be dying
and I really felt bad for him again. I asked him to dig deep and try to
remember how he felt the moment he first came upon the scene. It was
recent enough for him to recall his immediate response as a painful
feeling of shock quickly followed by the negative attributions and final
empathic distress, perhaps not (p.84) unlike the trauma clinicians
described earlier who used distracting thoughts as temporary relief of
empathic over-arousal.
Empathic anger. Whats most important for present purposes is when a
perpetrator is involved. One may then feel empathic anger toward the
perpetratoran individual, group, law, the statewhether or not the
victim feels angry. John Stuart Mill (1861/1979) connected empathic
anger, justice, laws, and society: the natural feeling of retaliation
rendered by intellect and sympathy applicable to those hurts that wound
us through wounding others . . . serves as the guardian of justice. In
other words, empathic feeling of injustice, reinforced by empathic anger,
is a crucial link between individuals and laws by providing voices needed
in law-based societies to uphold justice, object to people and laws that
abuse others, and be ready to punish perpetrators or change laws when
necessary. Empathic anger is thus a prosocial motive that gives society a
needed backbone. Empathic anger, as a personality trait or situationally
aroused, has been found to motivate both helping victims and punishing
perpetrators (Vitaglione & Barnett, 2003). It may interfere with
forgiveness, although forgiving some harmful acts may be immoral
(mass murder, corrupt mortgage lending practices) because it does an
injustice to actual victims and legitimizes the harmful act. The problem
with empathic anger is to make sure the anger part doesnt dominate
and use the empathy part to justify aggression.
An example of empathy over injustice is Supreme Court Justice Harlans
lone dissent in the case that made separate but equal education the
law in 1896. Harlans dissent is suffused with empathic concern for the
individual experience of race discrimination and clearly links it to
injustice: We boast of the freedom enjoyed by our people. But it is
difficult to reconcile that boast with a law which, practically, puts the
brand of servitude and degradation upon a large class of our fellow
citizens . . . our equals before the law. A law which, by sinister
legislation [allows States] the power to interfere with the full enjoyment
of the blessings of freedom, to regulate civil rights, common to all
citizens, upon the basis of race, and to place in a condition of legal
inferiority a large body of American citizens. The opinion also expresses
empathic anger toward race discrimination and Southern lawyers
dissembling about racial motivation, which he saw as an insult to our
intelligence (Pillsbury,1999).
Fairness/justice. That humans have a natural preference for
fairness/justice and an aversion to unfairness is supported by evolution
theory (Silk & Bailey, 2011) and behavioral economics research across
cultures (Fehr & Schmidt, 1999; Fehr & Gachter 2005). Culture helps
determine exactly what constitutes fairness: Hundley and Kim (1997)
found Koreans judgments of pay fairness were relatively more sensitive
to differences in seniority, education, and family (p.85) size; American
judgments were more sensitive to variations in individual job
performance and work effort. Especially interesting, in view of Americas
normative support for individualistic self-serving behavior, are the
findings that recipients who think theyve received more than they
deserve may feel over-benefitted, and this can evoke feelings of guilt and
the (often vague) expectation that they may be punished for this
(Schroeder, Penner, Dovidio, & Piliavin, 1995, p. 214). Americans can
also accept the loss of their jobs through downsizing if they believe the
managements decision-making process was fair (Peterson & Cary,
2002). And they show activation of several of the brains reward regions
when treated fairly even if they gain less materially (Tabibnia, Satpute, &
Lieberman, 2008), which adds brain imaging to the mix that suggests
most Americans and perhaps other Westerners value fairness itself not
just when fair treatment is to their advantageous. Even 2-year-olds show
the germinal roots, though not a full grasp of the concept of fairness
(Sloane, Baillargeon, & Premack, 2012).
It seems reasonable to conclude that most people believe a person
should get what he deserves based on performance, effort, and possibly
also character and legal rights; and that punishment for unfair behavior
and other misdeeds should fit the crime. When one sees others get less
than deserved, deprived of rights, or punished excessively, the
preference for fairness is violated. This may motivate action to right the
wrong by transforming empathic distress into an empathic feeling of
injustice (Hoffman, 2000). Justice/fairness when violated may also have
its own motive-arousal properties, which would add fuel to the empathic
motivation to act. In any case, justice/fairness adds an element of
inclusiveness that makes empathic feeling of injustice a more significant
moral, social, and legally relevant concept than empathy alone.
A note on empathy and fairness/justice, which are not commonly
thought of as being related perhaps because they are at times in conflict,
as in the courtroom discussed later. For a full discussion of why they are
related see Hoffman (2000, pp. 228245). For now its enough to say
that one way they are related is that victims of fairness/injustice are
likely to arouse empathic feelings of injustice. There is also fMRI
evidence that the same brain regions involved in empathic pain and
disgust are involved when one responds to unfair offers in a monetary
exchange game (Singer, 2007).
A caveat. Like empathys bias (see below) fairness/justice is vulnerable
to bias. One need only keep up with the news to know observers are less
likely to respond to victims of injustice who are members of minority
groups or other cultures, and women. The extent of this bias presumably
varies with culture and historical period.
Individuals whose empathy over injustice changed laws and society.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose novel Uncle Toms Cabin (Stowe,
1852/1929) humanized (p.86) and described the living conditions of
slaves in the South, was motivated to write it by empathic distress
especially for mothers forcibly separated from children, and empathic
anger at the Fugitive Slave Law, as suggested by this excerpt: An
affluent, politically uninvolved housewifes deeply felt empathy for
slaves she personally knew who have been abused and oppressed all
their lives motivates her to oppose a new law against giving food,
clothes, or shelter to escaping slaves. She argues with her husband, an
official who supports the law, saying the Bible says we should feed the
hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the desolate . . . people dont run away
when theyre happy, but out of suffering. She opposes the shameful,
wicked, abominable law and vows to break it at the earliest opportunity.
Stowes personal motivation to write the book apparently was triggered
by her favorite sons death: (from a letter to her friend) . . . I have been
the mother of seven children, the most loved of all lies buried near my
Cincinnati residence . . . at his dying bed and grave I learned what a poor
slave mother must feel when a child is torn away from her. In those
immeasurable depths of my sorrow it was my only prayer to God that
such anguish might not be suffered in vain . . . the most cruel suffering
that I felt could never be consoled for unless this crushing of my own
heart might enable me to work out some great good to others . . . I allude
to this here because I have often felt that much that is in that book had
its roots in the awful scenes and bitter sorrow of that summer . . . It has
left now no trace in my mind except a deep compassion for the
sorrowful, especially for mothers who are separated from their children
(Stowe, 1852/2009). This is a clear example of a type of combined
perspective-taking in which self-focused leads to and continues along
with other-focused perspective-taking.
Did the book accomplish Stowes goal of abolishing slavery? Three
hundred thousand copies were sold in the United States the first year of
publication (1852), and a million copies in the United Kingdom (which
contributed to worldwide support for emancipation). It was the best-
selling novel in the world in the 19th century (only the Bible sold more).
While no one should underestimate the great services of abolitionists
like Garrison, Phillips, Parker and Sumner, who cast their fortunes into
the effort to free the slaves, it is truth to say that all their efforts were
but a drop in the bucket compared with the stir and power that were in
Uncle Toms Cabin. Never in human history has a work devoted to a
great cause had such an instantaneous effect (Ward, 1896). This is
surely an exaggeration, but most Civil War historians agree the book
played heavily in the 1850s national debate, which depended largely on
whether Stowes portrayals were true to life. They also agree the book
played a significant role in preparing the nation psychologically for
emancipation and Civil War. It also stoked fires overseas: it influenced
the emancipation of the (p.87) Russian serfs and later inspired Lenin,
who recalled it as his favorite book in childhood; it was the first
American novel translated and published in China; it fuelled
emancipation in Cuba and Brazil (Reynolds, 2011). Its not an
exaggeration to say that by humanizing the slaves and exposing their
daily pain the book aroused empathy for them in hundreds of thousands
of people worldwide and made a profound contribution to social and
cultural change in America.
Another example is Lyndon Johnson, who had deeply felt empathy for
the plight of African Americans since emancipation and continuing
through World War II into the 1950s and for the powerless and the
poor in general which came from personal experience with them (Caro,
2002). When he was 21 Johnson spent a year teaching Mexican children
in South Texas brush country: he visited their homes, saw the poverty,
learned their fathers were paid slave wages by Anglo farmers. I saw
hunger in their eyes and pain in their bodies. Those little brown bodies
had so little and needed so much . . . I could never forget the
disappointment in their eyes and the quizzical expression on their faces .
. . they seemed to be asking why dont people like me? Why do they hate
me because I am brown?a vivid example of the language of empathy
(see below). Besides teaching, he tried to help them (getting the school
board to buy play equipment, arranging games with other schools) but
their life circumstances interfered. Johnsons empathic anger and
feelings of injustice combined to fuel a promise of future action on their
behalf: I swore then and there that if I ever had a chance to help those
underprivileged kids I was going to do it. That, he said later, was where
his dream began of an America where race, religion, color, and language
didnt count against youlong before he was in the position as senator
and later as president to act on it.
As a senator, Johnsons empathy, plus of course his drive, personal
ambition, extraordinary persuasive skills, and knowledge of Congress
and the tactical and strategic levers he could press, enabled him, against
relentless opposition from Southern colleagues, to get Americas first
civil rights legislation passed in 1964. He later backtracked a bit when
his strong civil rights stand conflicted with his goal to be president. But
even as president he appointed the first African American to the
Supreme Court and won a major addition to the civil rights laws he had
obtained in Congress: the Fair Housing Act, which he hoped would
supplement school desegregation and end ghettoization of black
America. His domestic programs ended up underfunded due to the
Vietnam War and the quagmire in Southeast Asia, which undermined
his presidency and his dreams of building a Great Society. Still, his
accomplishments illustrate empathys potential impact on laws, and the
vast social change that may follow from them when it is deeply and
enduringly felt and allied with a person in powers egoistic motives. It
also shows empathys fragility when it conflicts with those same motives
and is opposed by powerful social and political (p.88) forces. Along
with Uncle Toms Cabin, Johnsons accomplishments show empathys
contribution to laws, in this case laws pertaining to injustices imposed
on socially disadvantaged groups, which in turn change society and the
course of history. In short, empathy can change society in ways that lead
to changing laws, which feed back and change society.
A third example combines the interaction of a Stowe-like author and a
Johnson-like power figure in another country. Stowe showed that an
authors empathy over the plight of societies victims could help change
laws in a democracy with a large reading public. Could this happen in an
autocratic state with far fewer people who read? Apparently yes. A
Sportsmans Notebook (1852), written by Russias great 19th-century
novelist Ivan Turgenev, which, like Uncle Toms Cabin and published the
same year, portrayed the serfs as human and exposed their cruel
treatment in great personal detail, is generally credited by historians
with helping revolutionize Russias serfdom system (Ripp, 1980). Like
Stowe, Turgenevs book includes some landowners who treated serfs
fairly and serfs who had contented lives, but what came through to
readers, whose previous knowledge of the serfs harsh existence was
largely abstract, are serfs flogged, sent to the army for displeasing their
master, prohibited from marrying, renamed, sent to work in factories for
wages paid their master, or treated like a doll: they turn him this way
and that, they break him and throw him away.
Turgenevs personal empathy for serfs is revealed in an argument with
his mother over her cruel treatment of the familys 2,000 serfs:
[Mother] . . . but theyre well-fed, shod, and clothed, even paid wages . .
. [Ivan] . . . but, momma, I didnt say that they were starving or not
well clothed. Just think about what it must be like for a man to live
constantly in such a state of fear! Imagine a whole life of fear, and
nothing but fear! Their grandmothers, their fathers and they themselves
are all afraid . . . must their children also be doomed. [Mother] . . .
What fear . . . ? [Ivan] . . . The fear of not being safe for a day, or for a
single hour of their existence; today here; tomorrow there, where you
will. That is not life (Moser, 1972, p. 4). Im not sure fear was the most
appropriate description of the serfs distress, but the language is clearly
empathic.
Turgenevs book made the predominantly upper class and serf-holding
reading public aware of the serfs human qualities and the cruelties they
suffered, and thus, much as Uncle Toms Cabin did in America, helped
cultivate sentiment for reforms already beginning in Russian society.
This contributed to Tsar Alexanders emancipation manifesto, the legal
basis of serfdom reform in Russia, in 1861, a year before Lincolns
Emancipation Proclamation (Freeborn, 1960). But here, unlike with
Stowe, was the important role played by the tsar himself. When he was
19 and still a grand duke he was taken on a seven-month tour of the
Russian empire by his tutor. On the tour he insisted, against his (p.89)
fathers instructions, on stopping frequently to enter peasant huts and
talk to the serfs. According to Hanne (1994), one of Alexanders
biographers describes him as displaying obvious anguish (empathic
over-arousal) as he discovered the conditions of existence of many serfs
(Almedingen, 1962), and another notes that during the tour the peoples
sorrow became Alexanders sorrow (Schumacher, no reference given).
Hannes summary is that ten years before reading Turgenevs first story
Alexander had a series of direct encounters with serfs and was deeply
moved by their desperate living conditions.
Reading Turgenevs stories years later apparently revived Alexanders
empathy; he was deeply moved once again by Turgenevs vivid
descriptions of the serfs plight, personalities, and feelings of
desperation, which he read and discussed with his wife. This apparently
enhanced and consolidated his empathy for the serfs, and, as with
Lyndon Johnson, was partly responsible for his motivation to abolish
serfdom at the earliest opportunity. He succeeded to the throne in 1855
and quickly initiated moves toward emancipation. He accomplished it in
1861, like Lincoln against strong opposition from the landed serf-owning
gentry. He did this by asserting his power and arguing forcefully that
freeing the serfs from the top was better than risking a revolution, not
unlike Lincoln who justified emancipation by its helping to win the Civil
War.
Besides influencing the tsar, Turgenevs describing the serfs as
individual human beings with intellectual and spiritual potentialities
contributed to a widespread changing of Russians attitude toward them.
This helped end the tendency, even among liberals desiring
emancipation, to treat serfs with derision and contempt (Schapiro,
1978). This shift in public opinion, as with Uncle Toms Cabin, was an
ally that helped strengthen the tsars case for emancipation. Turgenevs
book reactivated the tsars travel-based empathy with serfs, and it
energized the anti-serfdom sentiment in the small but influential
reading public. Turgenev and the tsaran empathic one-two punch.
It is unclear if Turgenev, like Stowe, wrote for the express purpose of
achieving emancipation. He once said he did and called the book a
political manifesto, though he often claimed to be detached from social
and political concerns. But he was happy with the outcome: my one
desire for my tomb is that they should engrave upon it what my books
accomplished for emancipation of the serfs. Yes, thats all I ask.
(Goncourt, 1962). He also claimed the tsar personally thanked him for
the book, a claim vouched for by his biographer (Hanne, 1994;
Almedingen, 1962).
Was there an empathic Stowe-Lincoln one-two punch, like Turgenev-
Alexander? It would seem likely given the comment attributed to
Lincoln when introduced to Stowe, So you are the little woman who
wrote the book that started this great war. Most historians doubt he
said it or suggest it was said in jest, and they agree that he may not have
read Stowes book and considered (p.90) emancipation a political not a
moral act, a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing [the
rebellion of the Southern states]. Furthermore, although he believed
deeply in Americas founding proposition that all men are created equal
and opposed slavery as an evil institution, a monstrous injustice, there
is no evidence of an empathic sensitivity to the horrors of slave life,
which is surprising given his image as kind and compassionate. He was
unlike Lyndon Johnson, who was known as an ambitious, tough political
brawler willing to bully, flatter, horse-trade, whatever it took to get what
he wanted but with deep compassion for the downtrodden. There are
lessons here: we cant always infer empathy from prosocial acts, and
empathy is not always a consistent personality trait. In any case there is
no evidence for a Stowe-Lincoln empathic one-two punch.
A final example is Yale Kamisar, known to legal scholars as an enemy of
injustice whose fiery empathy for those accused of crimes is combined
with an incredibly logical and rational approach to Constitutional law.
His main concern was confessions elicited by police using varying
degrees of coercion and techniques of subtle persuasion. These
quotations illustrate the language of empathy: The atmosphere and
environment of incommunicado interrogation is inherently intimidating
. . . the temptation to press the victim unduly, to browbeat him if he is
timid or reluctant, to push him into a corner and entrap him into fatal
contradictions, so painfully evident in many state trials . . . make the
system so odious as to give rise to a demand for its abolition . . . In many
cases police resort to physical brutalitybeating, kicking, hanging,
whipping, placing cigarette butts on his backand sustained and
protracted questioning incommunicado in order to extort confession or
inform on a third party . . . and which put the suspect in such an
emotional state as to impair his capacity for rational judgment.
Kamisars articles on police interrogation procedures, cited by Supreme
Court judges, were a major factor in the 1966 Miranda v. Arizona
decision, which linked the procedures to the Fifth Amendments clause
against self-incrimination and gave the accused the right to remain
silent and have a lawyer present during interrogation. He continued
supporting Miranda against attacks by those who saw it as an obstacle to
criminal investigation (Kamisar, 2000).
Note: by language of empathy I mean this: ones empathy can be
communicated explicitly by describing ones feelings for victims, but it is
often expressed indirectly without mentioning ones feelings, by
selectively focusing ones attention and pointing up in fine detail what is
happening to victims and their physical and psychological distress, as in
the cases cited here. Another example is Walt Whitman, whose well-
known empathy for Civil War soldiers is shown by the questions he
asked dozens of hospitalized, often dying soldiers and the painstaking
detail with which he described their plight; I couldnt (p.91) find one
mention his own feelings (Whitman, 18631865). Selective attention
implies motivation, and the prosocial action that follows shows it to be
empathic motivation. If research is to be done on empathy in the world
we need to learn more about the language of empathy. My hypothesis is
that focusing on whats happening to victims is always part of
perspective-taking and may reflect deeply felt empathy whether or not
one says I empathize with, feel sorry for, or my heart goes out to.
Empathy in Supreme Court Decisions. Empathy contributed to the
Supreme Courts unanimous 1954 decision inBrown v. Board of
Education, which overturned the separate-but-equal doctrine, made
desegregation of public schools the law, and resulted in busing and other
large-scale social changes. To some legal scholars traditional legality
clashed with and was ultimately transformed by empathy (Henderson,
1985).
The proceedings of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People relied heavily on empathy narratives to show how the
Southern states school segregation policy destroyed Black childrens
self-respect, stamped them with a badge of inferiority . . . put up road
blocks in their minds. It also relied on expert social science testimony,
including the famous study of Black children who preferred white dolls
and labeled black dolls as bad, to describe the nature of the
humiliation and self-hatred caused by segregation. The Souths main
argument, on separate-but-equal legal grounds, was that the states
involved had successfully wiped out all inequalities between its white
and colored schools (equal funding, class size, etc.) and this ended the
matter under the law. Their response to the empathy narratives was to
blame the victim: if segregation stamps Blacks with feeling of inferiority
thats because they choose to construe it that way, and besides,
psychological reactions to segregation is something the state lacks the
power to deal with.
The Courts opinion is an example of empathy over injusticeempathy
in this case linked to the Constitutions equal protection clause and to
the segregation laws having the effect of intensifying harm to its
victims. Empathy narratives thus did something unusual; they helped
the judges interpret the actual substance of the law and clarify a legal
concept. They did this by showing the prior, accepted separate but
equal principle was actually violated, that is, there was separation but
no equality since one race was harmed and the other wasnt. Regarding
long-term impact, the image of children in segregated schools preferring
white to black dolls still resonates as a lasting symbol of the opinion,
despite subsequent evidence that Black children in Northern states did
the same thing. This and other challenges have not diminished the doll
studys powerful imagery: see the article Betrayal of the children with
dolls: The broken promise of constitutional protection for victims of race
discrimination (Rich, 2004).
(p.92) It gets more complex when there are conflicting moral
claimants, as in the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion. Amicus briefs and
oral arguments were loaded with empathy narratives of horrible effects
of unwanted pregnancies on women, but also on fetuses whom
antiabortion lawyers humanized by calling them unborn children,
human beings, the true silent majority that needs someone to speak for
them and protect their rights, an obvious attempt to arouse empathy for
fetuses. The justices voted to allow abortion but most of them framed
the legal issue not in terms of empathy but on womens broad
constitutional rights and the rights and expertise of medical
professionals. Subsequent majority opinions undermined Roe in bits
and pieces (e.g., abolishing federal funding for abortions except when
the womans life was in danger). Finally, in a 1986 decision a bare
majority staved off an amicus attempt by President Reagan to have Roe
overturned. Judges in this case were influenced by a National Abortion
Rights Action League brief made up largely of letters by women who
anonymously told stories of their own abortion experiences including
horror ones of abortions before Roe and narratives of women having to
leave jobs, quit school, marry. These were empathy narratives but with a
legal equality-protection dimension: the right to choose abortion will
enable women to enjoy, like men, the right to fully use the powers of
their minds and bodies.
The Courts majority opinion acknowledges the empathy narratives but
does not rest on empathy alone: it links empathy to legal concepts, equal
rights and allowing women the same opportunities as men, the
Constitution embodies a promise that a certain private sphere of
individual liberty will be kept largely beyond the reach of government.
That promise extends to women as well as men. Few decisions are more
personal and intimate, more properly private, or more basic to individual
dignity and autonomy, than a womans decisionwith the guidance of
her physician and within the limits specified in Roewhether to end her
pregnancy. A womans right to make that decision freely is fundamental.
. . . Empathy narratives thus contributed to saving abortion rights.
Abortion is not just a legal matter of course. It permeates and divides the
nation, and the debate continues playing itself out publicly, in part with
empathy narratives of desperate women on one side and CAT-scanned
images of doomed fetuses on the otherin every election nationally and
in most states.
Victim impact statements. Lawyers use these to call attention to victims
suffering. The empathy narratives discussed above are victim impact
statements, although they are used mainly in criminal trials. I discussed
how Kamisars empathy helped the criminally accused in police
interrogations. Empathy also helps the accused in court when evidence
is presented for their good character and unfortunate life circumstances.
Victim impact statements do the opposite. Consider this by a witness
whose daughter and granddaughter were murdered: He cries for his
mom. He doesnt understand why she doesnt come (p.93) home. And
he cries for his sister Lacie. He comes to me many times during the
week and asks, Grandma, do you miss my Lacie. I tell him yes. He says
Im worried about my Lacie (Bandes, 1996, p. 361).
Should jurors be allowed to hear such heartbreaking empathy-arousing
testimony? The Supreme Court in 1991 said they should. Some legal
scholars weigh the pros and cons, and say on balance, yes, mainly to
counter the parade of witnesses who testify to the defendants character
or to unusual pressure that drove the defendant to commit his crime by
allowing victims or their families to present the full reality of human
suffering the defendant has produced. Others say no, because victim
impact statements may appeal to vengeance, class hatred, even bigotry,
and diminish juries ability to process evidence bearing on defendants
guilt or innocence, and are unnecessary because juries naturally
empathize with victims. It also has obvious bearing on empathic bias,
one of empathys limitations discussed below. For a discussion of the
issues see Blume (2003). But note that regardless of who is right or
wrong and under what circumstances, the issue is all about empathy,
highlighting its impact on law and society.

Empathys Limitations
I have long studied empathys s limitations (Hoffman, 1984, 2000),
which I consider serious. To begin, it should be clear from the foregoing
that empathy is limited by its fragility, by its being influenced and biased
in favor of ones similarity to, familiarity with and relationship to
victims, and by its dependence on the salience of distress cues.
1. Empathys fragility allows it to be trumped by egoistic motives like
fear and personal ambition, as in Lyndon Johnsons backtracking when
he ran for president. Its fragility also allows empathy to become so
aversive that bystanders may shift attention to their own personal
distress, leave or blame the victim, or think of other things to turn off
the image of the victims pain. This self-limiting feature of empathy is
not a total loss: it protects the observer and enables him to go on. And as
I noted it may give trauma clinicians temporary relief, enabling them to
regroup and return to the patient.
2. Though people may empathize with anyone in distress, they
empathize more with people like themselves. Recent research makes it
clear, at the neural as well as behavioral level, that people empathize
more with victims who share their race (Avenanti, Sirigu, & Aglioti,
2010) and ethnic (p.94) group (Xu, Zuo, Wang, & Han, 2009) as well as
gender, and with kin and friends. They empathize more with distressed
members of their own team than distressed competitive rivals (Smith,
Powell, Combs, & Schurtz, 2009), unless the latter are viewed as having
lower status (Cikara & Fiske, 2012), perhaps because that signifies added
distress. Finally, in a longitudinal study of AIDS volunteers, empathic
subjects helped in-group members more than out-group members
(Sturmer, Snyder, & Omoto, 2005). For a review and discussion of in-
group bias studies see Cikara, Bruneau, and Saxe (2011).
This in-group or familiarity bias may not be a serious problem in small
homogeneous groups except where there are multiple victims and one
must make a choice. It can be serious in the courtroom in criminal cases
where plaintiff, defendant, judge, and jury are from different class or
ethnic groups, in determining guilt, innocence, and severity of
punishment. It can be very serious in complex multiethnic or class-
stratified societies when scarce resources foster intergroup rivalry,
where it can contribute to violence and empathic anger toward anyone
seen as a threat to members of ones own group. This can add fuel to the
rivalry and make people willing to fight, even sacrifice themselves in
intergroup warfare. Mass murder can seem legitimate to people who feel
their community is under threat and they are merely doing what is
necessary to save the lives of their nearest and dearest. So I didnt shoot
anyone and I really feel bad about it, really bad, because now he will
throw stones at another soldier and could injure him (Israeli soldier in
first intifadaElizur & Yishay-Krien, 2009). It is ironic, and unfortunate
for human survival, that in-group empathy can lead to out-group killing.
Clearly reducing in-group bias is a worthy research objective.
3. Empathys dependence on the salience of distress cues makes people
more likely to empathize with victims who are present than those who
are absent, which I call empathys here-and-now bias (Hoffman, 1984).
This bias is probably due to preverbal empathy-arousing modes being
activated only when victims are present, whether or not cognitive modes
are also involved. It has been shown experimentally: college students
who were induced to empathize with a girl suffering from a fatal disease
decided to move her up the waiting list for a new life-saving drug, at the
expense of children who were more in need and legitimately higher on
the list (Batson, Klein, Highberger, & Shaw 1995).
Empathys here-and-now bias is especially important in law. Posner
(1999) views it as a manifestation of the availability heuristic in the
courtroom when judges give too much weight to vivid immediate
impressions and hence pay too much attention to the feelings, interest,
and humanity of the parties (p.95) in the courtroom and too little to
absent persons likely to be affected by the decision . . . You dont need
much empathy to be moved by a well represented litigant pleading
before you. The challenge to the empathic imagination is to be moved by
thinking or reading about the consequences of the litigation for absent
often completely unknown or even unbornothers who will be affected
by your decision. Posner coined the term judicial empathy, which I
like because it stresses the positive. Posner might advocate prohibiting
or strongly discouraging empathy narratives and victim impact
statements in the courtroom, but he seems to assume that even without
them here-and-now empathic bias is inevitable and it is up to judges to
make every effort to counterbalance it. How? By taking the perspective
of and empathizing with victims and potential victims who are not
present in the courtroom.
An example of how here-and-now bias can interact with the media
(media-enhanced here-and-now bias), and affect society as well as the
courtroom is the highly publicized British nanny trial (New York Times,
November 11, 1997, pp. A1). When the 8-month-old child in the nannys
care was shaken to death, there was widespread media condemnation of
the nanny and sympathy for the parents. After her trial and conviction of
second-degree murder the empathic tide shifted in her favor (empathy
can be fickle). She became the victim and recipient of widespread
empathic distress partly because of the severity of her sentence. A retrial
was denied and the judge, after reviewing the trials history, found fault
with the sentence, described her action empathically as characterized by
confusion, inexperience, frustration, and anger, not malice in the legal
sense. He reduced the jurys verdict to manslaughter and time served
(297 days) and let her return to her U.K. home, reportedly saying, In my
judgment it is time to bring this sad scenario to a compassionate
conclusioncompassion for the nanny; the absent victims were
seemingly forgotten. The extent to which empathic here-and-now bias
affected the judges decision is not clear; what is clear is its impact on
the media and the cases larger social context. But this is just one case.
The larger generalization to be drawn is that empathizing with the
immediate victim can do a serious injustice to absent victims, real or
potential.

Conclusion
It seems clear that an individuals empathy contributed to emancipating
slaves, desegregation, civil rights, and abortion laws, all of which
significantly changed our social, political, economic, and cultural life. Of
course emancipation wasnt due to Stowe alone, but it wouldnt have
happened as soon as it did without her, and the same for Johnson and
civil rights legislation. Empathy narratives contributed to Supreme
Court desegregation, abortion, and Miranda decisions despite the laws
traditional view of empathy as anathema (p.96) to justice. These laws
had a substantial effect on society, to which we can add empathys
helping prepare the culture, society, and public policy changes that made
them possible in the first place. Not all laws relate to empathy, but those
pertaining to civil liberties, civil rights, and societys disadvantaged do.
They reflect Pinkers better angels of our nature and fit Rawlss
definition of a moral society as one that promotes the welfare of the
disadvantaged (although Rawls denies the role of empathy.)
Not all empathys contributions to society are positive. Empathic bias is
a serious problem, particularly in-group bias, which fosters intergroup
hostility and can keep nations from getting together to solve human-
survival problems like climate change. It may have survived natural
selection and be part of human nature, making empathy itself an
obstacle to Rifkins empathic civilization. There is also the current
human condition, with crises worldwide involving victims described by
the media in vivid detail every day, making everyone vulnerable to
empty empathy, which serves no constructive purpose and may waste
ones empathic resources and reduce the likelihood of empathizing
when needed in the future. Some may respond with too much empathy
and to avoid the unbearable pain put up defenses that immunize them
against empathizing with future victims.
Putting it all together, I still view empathy as the bedrock of morality,
the glue of society, and an important factor in changing laws and society
in a prosocial and projustice direction. Its not a panacea and has flaws.
It cant override powerful economic and political forces, ethnic divisions,
natural disasters, and personal ambition and has the other flaws I noted.
But its not just a sideshow, and in the absence of a viable alternative it
may be the only available human resource for keeping the diverse parts
of society together. If so, it is necessary to do whatever it takes to keep
empathy alive. This means recognizing and finding ways to overcome its
limitations and harness its power to serve communities larger than
ones own group. How? Perhaps, with help from the media, people could
be taught (a) to think about potential and absent victims of their actions,
the actions of others and of certain institutions (laws, taxes, tax cuts) by
imagining for example that the victims, even enemies from outside ones
group, are ones own loved ones; (b) to know that everyone regardless of
culture and including ones enemies share the same basic hopes, fears,
pain of loss, anxiety over climate change and human survival; (c) to pass
laws that require the kinds of interaction between groups and cultures
that reveal these commonalities and promote working together for
common objectives. Research wont solve it but can help, for example
research on the value of taking the others perspective (Galinsky &
Moskowitz, 2000) and on directly intervening to reduce intergroup
hostility and promote positive interaction (Cikara, Bruneau, & Saxe,
2011).

(1) . Tatiana Freedman helped construct the questionnaire and collected

the data.
(2) . Some infant research suggests selfother differentiation exists in early
infancy, possibly at birth, but this is surely rudimentary, nonreflective, perhaps
a step above distinguishing ones body from the surrounding environment.
Empathy, Emotion Regulation, and Moral
Judgment
Antti Kauppinen
In recent years, some striking claims have been made about the
importance of empathyroughly, the capacity to share the feelings of
othersto morality and prosocial action. Perhaps most notably, Michael
Slote (2007,2010) 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 its 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
Jonathan Haidt (2012) also emphasize the role of non-empathic
emotional responses such as disgust in moral thinking.
The critics of empathy are half-right. It is indeed implausible that our
natural empathic responses to the suffering or joy of others either
explain or justify our considered moral verdicts. But there is a long
sentimentalist tradition, beginning from David Hume and Adam Smith,
which emphasizes (p.98) the importance of corrected empathic
responses, or what psychologists now call emotion regulation in the
context of empathy. What I will be arguing in this chapter is that ideal-
regulated empathic reactive attitudes, such as empathic resentment or
anger, may after all play a foundational role in explaining and
vindicating moral attitudes and judgment. In contrast to much of the
literature in this area, I will thus not address the role of empathy in
altruistic motivation or morally praiseworthy behavior, but focus on its
role in moral verdicts.
Ill begin by distinguishing different forms of empathy in Section 1.
What I say will be somewhat novel, since I highlight the kind of
adjustments to immediate empathizing that classical sentimentalists
proposed to be crucial to understanding morality. To connect the
sentimentalist view with contemporary psychological debate, I briefly
survey the literature on emotion regulation. What I call regulated
empathy is a broadly affective response to the perceived situation of
another that is regulated by reference to an ideal perspective. While
some recent work on the role of hedonic empathy has emphasized the
importance of emotional regulation in sympathy and prosocial behavior
(e.g., Eisenberg 2000a), the role of regulation in reactive empathy (such
as empathic anger) and moral judgment has remained largely
unexamined. In Section 2, I examine how and why the classical
sentimentalists believed empathy is regulated in the context of moral
thinking and how it contributes to explaining our moral judgments.
Roughly, they believed that given the practical function of moral
sentiments in reducing social conflict, we must try to discipline our
empathetic responses in a way that guarantees others doing likewise can
share them. They thus appeal to regulation by reference to an ideal
perspective, such as that of an impartial spectator. I formulate the core
idea in terms of a hypothesis I call Neo-Classical Explanatory
Sentimentalism (NCES). It says that the best fundamental explanation
of variation in moral judgment, in particular the extent to which we
praise actions and endorse norms that go against our self-interest,
appeals to variation in ideal-regulated reactive empathy.
In Section 3, I turn to comparing NCES to competing sentimentalist
accounts and responding to objections. The accounts I consider appeal to
unregulated empathy (Slote 2010), or culturally transmitted norms that
resonate with emotions (Nichols 2004, Prinz 2007). I argue that NCES
emerges as a strong contender for explaining why we judge as we do. In
the concluding section, I briefly make the case that a regulated empathy
account offers avindicating rather than debunking explanation of
certain emotion-based beliefs. Insofar as it is indeed ideal-regulated
empathy that fundamentally underlies our moral judgments, they may
well be in good order, in spite of the partiality of immediate empathy.

(p.99) 1. Empathy: Immediate and Regulated

In this section, my aim is to make clear what I mean by empathy and
highlight the importance of regulating our empathic responses in a way
that reliably avoids social and emotional conflict. Roughly, empathy
makes the feelings of others our own, and interpersonal emotional
conflict motivates up- or down-regulating the empathic feelings.
The term empathy is used for a number of related phenomena. In a
useful article, Daniel Batson (2009b) differentiates between eight
different senses. I will try to do with less, as my aim isnt to chart
everything people have thought fit to label this way. But some basic
distinctions have to be made to be clear about the kind of empathy I will
be talking aboutespecially as it does not even figure among Batsons
eight types! In line with most contemporary literature, Ill use the older
term sympathy for concern for another (see Darwall 1998, Sober &
Wilson 1998, introduction). As Nancy Eisenberg puts it, sympathy
involves feelings of sorrow or concern for the other and the other-
oriented desire for the other person to feel better (Eisenberg 1991, 129).
It is one possible consequence of empathizing with anothers negative
feeling.
One important phenomenon in this conceptual region is cognitive
empathy or perspective-taking. By cognitive empathy, I mean the
capacity or process of knowing what another wants, believes, or feels as
a result of placing oneself in her situation. There may be many ways of
coming to know what others think. It is plausible that at least one of
them is imagining what I would myself think in their position (self-
focused cognitive empathy), or what I would think in their position if I
shared their background beliefs, desires, values, and emotions (other-
focused cognitive empathy). Cognitive empathizing may well be best
cashed out in terms of simulating anothers reactions (Gordon 1995,
Goldman 2006). In any case, it is not what people in ordinary talk mean
by empathy, since it issues in a belief about anothers states, not in any
kind of emotional reaction.
Empathy, as ordinarily understood, is affective empathy. Affective
empathy is feeling the way another feels, or having a congruent emotion,
because the other feels that way.1 Thus defined, it is a success notion: if I
feel sad(p.100) because I take another to feel sad, although she is in
fact happy, I dont empathize with her. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that
my feeling of sadness is broadly empathetic, since it results from
exercising the capacity for empathy. (This distinction will be somewhat
important in what follows.) Within affective empathy, we can make
further distinctions on the basis of the kind of affective response
empathized with. One kind of affective empathy is hedonic: we take on
the joy, happiness, pleasure, pain, or sadness of another. This is the kind
of empathy that most psychological research and measures have focused
on.
In my view, however, our ability to take on anothers reactive attitudes,
such as resentment and gratitude, is what is crucial for morality. As
Peter Strawson famously put it, these attitudes are natural human
reactions towards the good or ill will or indifference of others towards
us, as displayed in attitudes and actions (Strawson1962/1982, 67). They
are not responses merely to the harm or benefit that results from what
others do to usafter all, such consequences might be accidental or
incidental. What matters for resentment, say, is instead the disregard or
disrespect that the other displays toward us. Put differently, what
triggers reactive attitudes is what Kant called the maxim of the action.
A maxim is the agents underlying principle that specifies what she does
and to what end, such as I will slow down in order to avoid splashing
the pedestrians. Ill call taking on anothers reactive attitudes reactive
empathy. In the empirical literature, it has been studied mostly in the
context of empathic anger (Hoffman 1987, Vitaglione & Barnett 2003),
which is one possible manifestation of resentment or indignation.
Psychologists sometimes appear reluctant to think of anger as a moral
response, as it is strongly linked to aggression. But responding to
impermissible behaviors with a negative sanction is absolutely central to
moralityfrom a practical point of view, it is its raison dtre.
There are different mechanisms whereby the feelings of others are
transmitted to us. Some are cognitively undemanding and can be found
in other species (see, e.g., de Waal 2008, Andrews & Gruen this volume),
and others involve inference or association (Hoffman 2000). However,
what may be the paradigm kind of affective empathy involves cognitive
empathy as well. In what we might call combined empathy, we come to
have an emotion congruent with anothers situation as a result of
imaginatively placing ourselves in anothers situation. In the following, I
will use the term empathy as shorthand for combined empathy. This is
simply for reasons of convenience: the other forms of empathy Ive
mentioned are quite rightly so labeled. It is nevertheless very important
to keep them apart. For example, psychopaths may have cognitive
empathy, but little or no affective empathy. They can figure (p.101) out
what others think, but are untouched by it. People with autism, it seems,
have affective empathy, but little or no cognitive empathythey have to
attribute feelings to others by explicit theory, but are then capable of
sharing them.2
(Combined) empathy is self-focused when I imagine being myself in
your situation, and as a result have a feeling suited for your situation
rather than mine. In this case, my feeling may differ from what you
actually feel (so my feeling may be only broadly empathetic). Empathy is
other-focused when I imagine being in your situation asyouwith your
goals, beliefs, and characterand feel the way you do.3 In terms of
simulation theory, what happens in other-focused empathy is not just
that I run my own psychological systems with inputs taken from your
situation, but I also adjust the settings of those systems themselves.
Consequently, the outputs may be different. Maybe Im thin-skinned, so
that hearing a racial epithet would wound me in your situation. But I
know youre not, so I simulate a thick-skinned person, and dont feel
vicariously hurt by what was said to you.
Empathic responses can come apart from anothers feelings when the
latter are based on false belief. Suppose you believe that your partner
cheated on you last night. I know this to be false, having spent the entire
evening gambling with him. You may be angry, and I will empathize with
this feeling if I place myself in your shoes with your beliefs as inputs
Ill be vicariously angry. Yet it makes little sense for me to be angry with
your partner, knowing hes innocent. Or: you thought your partner was
innocently gambling with me, but I know he was cheating on you. Surely
it is a kind of empathic response on my part to be angry with your
partner (cf. Hoffman2011). Lets say my empathy is truth-adjusted when
I have an emotional response as a result of simulating being in your
situation with true beliefs (as far as I know) as inputs. It is clear from
the cases that truth-adjusted empathy may result in emotions that are
not congruent with your actual emotions, but it is still a form of
empathy, broadly speaking. It is not what is now typically called
sympathy, since it need involve no concern for you, or desire to make
you feel betterafter all, you may feel quite good about your partner in
your blissful ignorance.4

(p.102) Regulated Empathy

Empathizing with others presents particular challenges in conflict
situations, which frequently call for some form of emotion regulation.
Consider the following scenario:
Rich Man, Poor Man
A beggar is sitting on the street with all his possessions. As a man in
a fine suit approaches, he holds up his cup and says politely Sir,
would you have a coin for a cup of coffee? The rich man says Not
for you, my friend and brushes past. Jerk, mutters the beggar
resentfully.
If I empathize with the beggar, I will predictably resent the rich mans
behavior to some extent. But if I corner him later at the casino to
complain, he might well object that hes worked very hard for what hes
got and has no time to stop for every beggar. It may seem hard-hearted,
but refraining from pitying the poor encourages them to practice self-
reliance in the land of opportunity. If I were in his shoes, I would not
give to beggars either, he might say. If I empathize with the rich man, I
might even resent the poor man for living off the hard work of others,
and certainly wont disapprove of the rich mans behavior. So
empathizing with both results in conflicting sentiments toward the same
action.
Emotional conflict is an everyday fact of life. In such cases, it is
impossible for a third party to take on both opposing feelings as her
own, except at the cost of internalizing the conflict. She is bound to
regulate her empathic responses somehow. How might one do this?
Emotion regulation (or more broadly, emotion-related regulation) has
become a major topic in psychology in the last decades, along with self-
regulation in general (see Vohs & Baumeister (eds.) 2011). Emotion
regulation involves goal directed processes functioning to influence the
intensity, duration, and type of emotion experienced (Guyrak, Gross, &
Etkin 2011, 401). There are various questions to ask about such
processes. In the interest of making headway toward understanding how
empathic emotions might be regulated, I will focus on two main
questions about emotion regulation in general: How are emotions
regulated, and why?
The first question concerns the strategies of regulation. There are
various ways to categorize them. James Grosss (1998) well-known
proposal is to distinguish between different stages of an emotional
episode: the eliciting situation, its attended features, their appraisal, and
the behavioral, experiential, and physiological response tendencies.
Emotions can then be regulated, first, by situation selection or situation
modification with a view to avoiding or generating emotional responses
in oneself. Some do not count such situation (p.103) management as a
species of emotion regulation, strictly speaking. But the next stage,
attentional deployment, is by consensus an important strategy. Well-
known variants include distraction (focusing on something other than
the emotion-elicitor), concentration, and rumination (attending to ones
feelings as well as their causes and consequences) (Gross 1998, 284).
Another cognitive strategy is reappraisal of the emotion-eliciting
features. Ochsner and Gross (2008) distinguish between two main
variants: reinterpreting the stimuli (for example, imagining an arousing
image is a fake) and distancing from stimuli by adopting a detached,
third-person perspective (2008, 154). The second kind of strategy will
be important in what follows. For Gross, the final stage is response
modulation, which includes direct suppression of emotion, modifying its
expression with a view to changing the underlying emotion, or causing
physiological changes with this purpose, for example by using drugs or
alcohol. These strategies are not all equally fruitful. For example, Gross
and John (2003) found that habitual use of reappraisal strategy was
related to high wellbeing and interpersonal functioning (such as having
close relationships and emotional and practical social support), while
habitual suppression had opposite consequences.
An important distinction that cross-cuts between these strategies is that
between explicit and implicit emotion regulation. Explicit emotion
regulation involves conscious effort to change ones emotional state and
thus requires some level of awareness of ones state and insight into
what might change it. Recently, many have argued that emotion
regulation can be an automatic, System 1 process as well as a conscious
effort (Bargh & Williams 2007; Guyrak, Gross, & Etkin 2011). Such
implicit emotion regulation occurs without effort or conscious
awareness. It can be the result of habit. As Guyrak, Gross, and Etkin
point out, frequent use of a given explicit strategy can quickly render
the initiation of the strategy more implicit during regulation, thus
making it more implicit over time (2011, 405).
The second general question about emotion regulation concerns the
reasons for doing so. Ill distinguish between intrapersonal and
interpersonal reasons. Intrapersonal reasons include, most centrally,
avoiding hedonic discomfort. They motivate us to reduce the intensity
and frequency of unpleasant emotion and increase positive emotions.
There may also be reasons deriving from maintaining integrity, which
may have the opposite effect in some contexts (Koole 2009). Unpleasant
emotions may also be up-regulated because they are useful to achieve a
goalfor example, anger can make success in a competitive situation
more likely (Tamir 2009; Ford, B. Q., and Tamir, M. 2012). Interpersonal
reasons have to do with facilitating interaction with others. Our
emotions make a difference to what we do and what its like to be with
us, and thus influence our relationships with others. Psychologists who
emphasize interpersonal reasons (p.104) argue that the need for
emotion regulation arises from conflicting goals that different people
have (Campos, Walle, Dahl & Main 2011).
What is the role of emotion regulation in empathy? In the past, this
question has been addressed in the context of explaining helping
response. Nancy Eisenberg has long argued that emotion regulation is
one determinant of whether empathic arousal results in sympathy or in
personal distress. The core idea is that unregulated empathic response
may be so strong that the person focuses on relieving her own situation
rather than on the others problems. This depends in part on the
individuals general level of emotionality (intensity and frequency of
emotional episodes) (Eisenberg & Fabes 1992). This hypothesis has
received modest support from various empirical studies (Eisenberg
2000a).
While the data concerning the relation between emotion regulation and
hedonic empathy are important in the context of understanding morally
praiseworthy motivation, they do not address my present question,
which is the regulation of reactive empathic responses to conflict
situations. They are precisely the sort of circumstances in which moral
judgment is typically called for and thus crucial for understanding the
role of empathy in moral judgment. There are both intrapersonal and
interpersonal reasons to regulate our empathic responses to conflict
situations. The intrapersonal reasons derive from the discomfort of
experiencing conflicting emotions. The interpersonal reasons derive
from the potentially destructive social conflict that results from
conflicting reactive attitudes and resulting behavior.
As far as intrapersonal conflict goes, any regulatory strategy may be
effective. It may be easy enough to empathize with the near and the dear
and the similar, and put the suffering of others out of mind. In Rich
Man, Poor Man, I may focus on the cocktails Im drinking with the rich
man or join in his rationalizations to ignore the plight of the beggar. I
will no longer feel torn about the situation. Crucially, however, such
strategies for managing the intrapersonal conflict only make the
interpersonal conflict worse. For an extreme example, consider the
IsraeliPalestinian conflict. On both sides, many people respond with
extreme empathy to the plight of their own while ignoring or
rationalizing away (they brought it on themselves, etc.) the suffering
of those on the other side. As a result, intercommunity conflict is
heightened, with consequences known to all.
It is a core insight of the classical sentimentalist tradition that there are
ways to regulate our empathic responses in a way that robustly reduces
interpersonal conflict. Roughly, we modify our empathic responses so
that they could be non-accidentally shared by anyone doing likewise. In
practice, this means counteracting our natural empathic biases. For
example, we must down-regulate our empathic reaction to the
treatment of those who are personally (p.105) important to us or
similar to us, and up-regulate our empathic reaction to the treatment of
those who are distant or different. When we do so, we respond to what is
done to someone from what Hume termed the common point of view, a
perspective anyone could come to share (see below). The classical
sentimentalist accounts of this process appeal to regulation by reference
to an ideal. Roughly, we down- and up-regulate in the most socially
adaptive way when we reappraise the situation while abstracting away
from our particular interests, relationships, and expectationswe look at
it from the perspective of a sympathetic impartial spectator. This will
dampen some empathic responses and strengthen others. The resulting
reactive attitudes will then be such that anyone can come to share them,
if theyre willing to be equally reasonable. This means they are
justifiable to others in the sense that they cant reasonably object to
them.
Ill call this kind of empathy ideal-regulated empathy. It is a broadly
affective response to anothers perceived situation that is regulated by
reference to an ideal perspective. My hypothesis, briefly, is that the most
effective strategy for such regulation involves both refocusing attention
to what things look like from the perspective of each of those affected by
an action, and reappraising the meaning of the action in the light of
expectations that any social actor as such could be expected to share.
Refocusing attention impartially predictably increases empathic
responses congruent with the situation of those different from or
opposed to us. The reappraisal involves detachment from personal
ideals, social identifications, and goals that others may not share, and
predictably decreases empathic responses to those similar to us. Such
ideal regulation need not be a conscious process, although it may
sometimes be suchpeople can ask themselves how an indifferent but
well-meaning bystander, or just anyone, or maybe Jesus would respond.
Taking on a more or less impartial perspective before reacting with
blame or praise is something that can become habitual and automatized.
There is reason to think that people would converge on similar ideals,
given what works best to reduce interpersonal conflictit is not exactly
alien to common sense that taking a step back from our egocentric (or
ethnocentric) perspective before reacting emotionally tends to defuse
tension.
Since regulation by reference to an ideal has not, to my knowledge, been
identified in the psychological literature, it has not been studied either.
But there are studies that seem to tap into related phenomena. For
example, Eran Halperin and coauthors have been investigating emotion
regulation in the context of intractable conflict, in particular the dispute
between Israelis and Palestinians (Halperin, Sharvit, & Gross 2011). In
one recent study (Halperin, Porat, Tamir, & Gross in press), Israeli
participants were shown a PowerPoint presentation that would
predictably induce anger toward Palestiniansmost (p.106) plausibly,
in my view, by way of empathic identification with Israeli victims of
Palestinian actions. In the reappraisal condition, participants were asked
to respond to the slides like scientists, objectively and analyticallyto
try to think about them in a cold and detached manner (Halperin, Porat,
Tamir, & Gross in press, 2). This is evidently not the same as responding
like an impartial spectator, but the instructions similarly call for
detaching from particular identifications and values, and can thus be
expected to down-regulate empathic anger for ones own and possibly
up-regulate empathy for the other side (although this is less likely). In
the experiment, participants in the reappraisal condition did indeed
report less anger than participants in the control condition and more
support for conciliatory policies toward Palestinians (Halperin, Porat,
Tamir, & Gross in press). A follow-up experiment applied the same
design to a real-life situation (the Palestinian bid for UN membership)
and found a similar effect, extending to five months after the
manipulation.
What the Halperin studies suggest is that people are indeed capable of
regulating their empathic responses by reference to an ideal (in their
case detached objectivity), and that this reduces natural empathic bias,
improving the odds of conflict resolution. (It is natural to assume that
there is more social pressure outside experimental context to adopt such
a stance in the case of ingroup conflict.) The studies did not,
unfortunately, ask for the participants to morally evaluate outgroup
behavior or possible policies toward the outgroup. According to the
sentimentalist tradition in metaethics, changes in empathic responses
predict changes in moral judgment, other things being equal. It is to this
tradition that I will turn to in the next section.

2. Classical Sentimentalism and Regulated Empathy

One can be a sentimentalist in ethics about many different things
moral metaphysics, moral judgments or concepts, moral epistemology,
and so on (Kauppinen 2013). Explanatory sentimentalists hold that our
moral judgments are fundamentally explained by our emotional
responses to nonmoral facts. By fundamentally explained I mean that
even if not every individual judgment is made on an emotional basis, the
belief or norm or disposition on the basis of which it is made traces back
to an emotional response, which may be that of another subject.
Explanatory sentimentalists disagree about the nature and ultimate
explanation of the emotional response, however. What is distinctive of
the classical sentimentalism of David Hume and Adam Smith is that
they believe moral approbation and disapprobation is the outcome of
empathizing with hedonic states or reactive attitudes, and more or less
successfully (p.107) regulating the resulting response by reference to
an ideal perspective. Variation in peoples moral judgments, holding the
situation and factual beliefs constant, is thus fundamentally explained
by variation in emotional dispositions, empathy, and regulation. (This is
consistent with some variation being explained by culturally transmitted
norms, which trace back to someones emotional responses to what they
believe the facts to be.)
On a sentimentalist view, sentiments of approbation and disapprobation
are thus more basic than moral judgments. As sentiments, they are
dispositions to feel, notice, and perceive considerations as reasons for
action. In my view, moral sentiments are best understood as comprised
of two elements: first, a disposition to praise or blame someone on
account of an attitude, action, or act-type, and second, an authority-
independent normative expectation that everyone share the disposition
to praise or blame. The two elements can be dissociated. For example,
the blame-emotion of anger need not involve or constitute moral
disapproval (think of being angry with a computer). It is possible to
blame someone without finding them blameworthy. The difference is in
the normative expectation, which may itself be just a disposition to
blame those who lack the first-order blaming response, praise those who
do, and so on (for this notion of emotional ascent, see Blackburn1998).
In the moral case, this normative expectation isnt contingent on others
expecting us to have it, unlike in the case of social norms. So a moral
sentiment is a complex emotional disposition. It is important for a
sentimentalist account that it does not presuppose a moral judgment or
appraisalotherwise the emotion response could not possible explain or
justify the judgment. Sentimentalists thus reject judgmentalist theories
of emotion (such as Nussbaum 2001).
The question is then: What fundamentally explains why we praise and
blame as we do? Why, in particular, do we sometimes approve of actions
or character traits that are contrary to our self-interest (such as an
enemys courage) and disapprove of actions that are or would be good
for us (such as the behavior of an enemy turncoat, or stealing a childs
lunch money when theres no one to catch us)? Crudely, Humes answer
is this: the more we empathize with the pain of the patient of an action,
thus feeling it ourselves to an extent, the more we disapprove of the
action. Insofar as we take the source of the pain to be an intentional
agent, we come to some extent to hate her. If I dont empathize with
your pain, I wont disapprove of the person who caused it; if I do, I may
disapprove even of myself for causing it. The converse goes for actions
the benefit others. As Hume summarizes his view, When any quality, or
character, has a tendency to the good of mankind, we are pleased with it,
and approve of it; because it presents the lively idea of pleasure; which
idea affects us by sympathy, and is itself a kind of pleasure. (T 1739
40/1978, 580) Humes account thus relies on what Ive called hedonic
empathy.
(p.108) However, Hume himself was the first to observe that there is
dissociation between what we naturally empathize with and what we
morally approve or disapprove of. The two dont co-vary. As he put it:
We sympathize more with persons contiguous to us, than with
persons remote from us: With our acquaintance, than with
strangers: With our countrymen, than with foreigners. . . . But
notwithstanding this variation of our sympathy, we give the same
approbation to the same moral qualities in China as in England. (T
581)
This gap between immediate empathy-based approval and moral belief is
also manifest in cases of a kind of moral luck. Best intentions may go
awry due to no fault of the actor. There is then no pleasure to empathize
with, yet we may consider the agent virtuous.
Humes response to these challenges is to argue, first, that we have
reason, independently of any moral consideration, to regulate our
empathic responses by reference to an ideal, and second, that such our
degree of success in correcting our sentiments for perspectival
distortion serves to fundamentally explain the observed pattern of
judgments. On the first point, he appeals to the practical benefits of
disciplining our empathy in the context of moral judging. Without doing
so, were in trouble:
Our situation, with regard both to persons and things, is in
continual fluctuation; and a man, that lies at a distance from us,
may, in a little time, become a familiar acquaintance. Besides, every
particular man has a peculiar position with regard to others; and it
is impossible we could ever converse together on any reasonable
terms, were each of us to consider characters and persons, only as
they appear from his peculiar point of view. (T 581)
Part of the point of using moral language is to guide the way others feel
and act toward the people we talk about. If we guide our judgments by
self-interest or biased immediate empathy, I praise a kind of action or
person while you blame the same kind of action or person, and
tomorrow our attitudes may be reversed if our position changes, even if
the action or person remains just the same. We do have a language for
this kind of approval: we talk about friends and enemies, liking and
disliking. But moral language suggests something different, as Hume
notes (1751/1948, 260). It manifests an expectation that others will
share our praise and blame and that our attitude hangs only on the
features of its target, not our idiosyncratic and possibly fleeting
responses to them. In the absence of a point of view that doesnt
presuppose particular interests and ideals, we couldnt achieve
anycoordination of blame and praise. (p.109) Since we are talking
about moral attitudes, I would not only blame people for doing things
you would praise them for, but also blame those who fail to share the
first-order blame. A spiral of mutual resentment and revenge would
threaten us, destroying the possibility of social trust and harmony.
So how do we avoid these problems caused by the variation in our
natural sentiments according to our situation of nearness or
remoteness, with regard to the person blamed or praised, and according
to the present disposition of our mind (T 592)? Hume says that we
solve them by finding a stable point of view that anyone, even rivals, can
share:
Tis impossible men coud ever agree in their sentiments and
judgments, unless they chose some common point of view, from
which they might survey their object, and which might cause it to
appear the same to all of them. (T 591, my emphasis)
It is sentiments felt from the common point of view that guide moral
judgments that we can justify to others. Hence, there is social pressure
for us to adopt such a perspective, particularly when it comes to
judgments concerning in-group members. As Hume puts it, Experience
soon teaches us this method of correcting our sentiments, (T 582)
although the passions do not always follow our corrections (T 585). In
adopting such a perspective, we regulate our uncorrected empathic
responses, with more or less success, and thus arrive at more or less
interpersonally justifiable judgments. Humes own account of this
regulation involves attending to and consequently empathizing with the
pleasure and pain of the typical effects of someones character traits on
those around her, her narrow circle (T 602). The problem with this
aspect of Humes view is, in a nutshell, that if we empathize with the
actual hedonic experiences of the narrow circle, well think Silvio
Berlusconi is an excellent fellow, since hes no doubt favored by his
cronies. But we dont. When we morally evaluate something, we do not
just look to the consequences, but also to the quality of the agents
intentions and motives.
So I believe that Smiths corresponding impartial spectator account does
a better job of explaining judgments of moral merit and demerit, in
particular due to its emphasis on taking on the reactive attitudes rather
than hedonic states of anyone affected. Generally speaking, Smith holds
that any passions of human nature, seem proper and are approved of,
when the heart of every impartial spectator entirely sympathizes with
them, when every indifferent by-stander entirely enters into, and goes
along with them (TMS 81). It is the reactive attitudes of resentment and
gratitude that lie at the foundation of moral blame and praise. They are
the sentiments that motivate punishment and reward and are sensitive
to the agents motives as well (p.110) as consequences. They appear
justified when we take any reasonable person would share them:
He, therefore, appears to deserve reward, who, to some person or
persons, is the natural object of a gratitude which every human
heart is disposed to beat time to, and thereby applaud: and he, on
the other hand, appears to deserve punishment, who in the same
manner is to some person or persons the natural object of a
resentment which the breast of every reasonable man is ready to
adopt and sympathize with. (TMS 81)
But how do we come to hold that someone is the natural object of the
resentment of any reasonable man? Smiths best account occurs in the
context of his discussion of self-directed moral judgment. He famously
says that We endeavour to examine our own conduct as we imagine any
other fair and impartial spectator would examine it. If, upon placing
ourselves in his situation, we thoroughly enter into all the passions and
motives which influenced it, we approve of it (TMS 129). So, what we
do, more or less successfully, is detach ourselves from our natural
perspective and look at the situation from the perspective of an
imaginary impartial spectator. This is something that habit and
experience teach us to do so easily and readily, that we are scarce
sensible that we do it (TMS 157). If, from such a perspective, I
empathize with the resentment of someone affected by an action, I take
the resentment to be fitting, and thus take the agent (who may be
myself) to have acted wrongly. Smith places particular emphasis on
correcting the natural misrepresentations of self-love (TMS 158), but
the kind of reflective correction he believes we make will also work for
the other distortions that Hume identified. He observes that for most of
us, our success in such correction depends on the social context and its
demands: The propriety our moral sentiments is never so apt to be
corrupted, as when the indulgent and partial spectator is at hand, while
the indifferent and impartial one is at a great distance. (TMS 179) It
takes the right kind of social environment for all but the most virtuous
to successfully regulate their sentiments by reference to the impartial
ideal.
Nevertheless, it remains a fact that as human beings, we simply cannot
adopt the common point of view in all cases, even if are strongly
motivated and have unlimited time at our disposal. We quickly run up
against cognitive and affective limits. As Jesse Prinz rightly emphasizes,
empathy essentially targets individuals as such (Prinz 2011a). But
groups and large numbers of people are also morally relevant. Moreover,
it seems that sometimes the right thing to do goes against the grain of
empathy. As Hume noted,
Judges take from a poor man to give to a rich; they bestow on the
dissolute the labour of the industrious; and put into the hands of
the vicious the means of harming both themselves and others. (T
579)
(p.111) His response to the problem was to distinguish a class of
artificial virtues, justice among them.5Instead of exploring this
intriguing idea, Ill propose a two-stage explanatory model inspired by
Adam Smiths remarks on the role of reason in judgment. Smiths idea is
that many if not most of our moral judgments result from reasoning
from principles rather than directly from empathetic sentiments.
Nevertheless, our adherence to these principles is ultimately explained
by disciplined sentiment:
The general maxims of morality are formed, like all other general
maxims, from experience and induction. We observe in a great
 variety of particular cases what pleases or displeases our moral
faculties, what these approve or disapprove of, and, by induction
from this experience, we establish those general rules. (TMS 377)
We are better off regulating the greater part of our judgments by
appeal to such rules because they would be extremely uncertain and
precarious if they depended altogether upon what is liable to so many
variations as immediate sentiment and feeling, which the different
states of health and humour are capable of altering so essentially
(ibid.).
Smiths remarks suggest the following kind of two-stage account:
Stage 1: Moral sentiments that result from more or less successfully
ideal-regulated empathy in small-scale paradigmatic instances
initially explain beliefs about which act-types are wrong-making
(and associate blame with those act-types, other things being
equal).
Stage 2: Beliefs about which act-types are instantiated combined
with beliefs about which act-types are wrong-making generate
beliefs about the wrongness of particular actions (and associate
blame with them).
On this model, then, ideal-regulated empathy isnt needed to directly
explain beliefs about particular cases. Rather, it explains beliefs about
paradigm cases and pro tanto principles, which then generate judgments
about particular cases when combined with particular facts. We dont
have to try to take up the common point of view or engage in systematic
reflection unless the various features of an action generate opposing
responses. It is also important that we can acquire beliefs about
principles from other people, such as parents or other role models. But
all the same, these chains of cultural transmission come to (p.112) an
end somewheresomeone or some people must have formed the beliefs
to begin with. And the hypothesis is that when it comes to judgments
that are likely to be widely accepted, their beliefs will have resulted from
more or less successful ideal-regulated empathizing.

3. Comparing Sentimentalist Explanations

In the preceding sections, I have articulated and tentatively endorsed the
classical sentimentalist explanation of our moral approval and
disapproval in terms of more or less ideal-regulated empathic responses.
Call this type of explanatory account that casts classical sentimentalism
in contemporary terms neo-classical sentimentalism. The main thesis
may be formulated somewhat more precisely as follows:
Neo-Classical Explanatory Sentimentalism
The best fundamental explanation of variation in core moral
judgments along the dimension of interpersonal acceptability is
variation in empathy and exercising emotion regulation by
reference to an ideal perspective.
This account predicts that people who are wholly deficient in empathy
(such as psychopaths) will only be capable of making interpersonally
acceptable moral judgments parasitically on others. It is unsurprising if
they are consequently unable to distinguish between moral and social
norms, which are also transmitted by others (see Blair 1995). At the
other end of the scale, people who are maximally empathic and capable
of ideal regulation are predicted to make judgments that are widely
acceptable and withstand reflective scrutiny. They may be considered
moral exemplars (sages, saints) by others and may thus be sources of
culturally transmitted norms. Finally, I add the qualification core moral
judgments, by which I mean judgments about what we owe to each
other (Scanlon 1998). There are other moral judgments that NCES
doesnt purport to explain, such as condemnation of harmless behaviors
that offend a religious sensibility.
To evaluate the thesis that ideal-regulated empathy is the best
explanation of something, we need to compare it with the most plausible
alternatives. I will not attempt a comprehensive survey in this paper.
Sentimentalist accounts in general have two things going for them:
simplicity and parsimony. They typically postulate only very simple and
straightforward psychological capacities that have a nonmoral distal
evolutionary explanation. They are compatible with an austere picture of
practical reason that is precisely modeled by rational choice theory.
Sentimentalists argue that neither reason nor mere understanding tells
(p.113) us to care about the interests of others or respect. Since
discussing these arguments is beyond the scope of this chapter, I simply
proceed on the assumption that they are along the right lines, and that
emotions of one kind or another are fundamental in explaining moral
thought.
There are, however, many competing sentimentalist explanatory
accounts. Some involve appeal to unregulated empathy, while others
dismiss or sideline it. In this section, I will compare NCES to two leading
contemporary views. First, Michael Slotes account gives unregulated
empathy pride of place in moral thinking. Second, Jesse Prinzs and
Shaun Nicholss accounts appeal to the emotional resonance of
culturally transmitted norms, and Prinz in particular is skeptical of
empathys role.

(a) Slotes Unregulated Empathy View

The most notable recent empathy enthusiast in philosophy has no doubt
been Michael Slote. He argues that empathy plays a constitutive role in
moral attitudes, and he makes both explanatory and justificatory claims
on behalf of empathy. The kind of empathy he sees as the cement of the
moral universe (2010, 13) is what Ive called immediate empathy. To
begin with Slotes main moral psychological thesis, he claims that
empathic feelings constitute moral approval and disapproval:
[I]f agents actions reflect empathic concern for (the well being or
wishes of) others, empathic beings will feel warmly or tenderly
toward them, and such warmth and tenderness empathically reflect
the empathic warmth or tenderness of the agents. . . . [S]uch
empathy with empathy . . . also constitutes moral approval, and
possibly admiration as well, for agents and/or their actions. (Slote
2010, 3435)
Some peoples actions exhibit empathy toward others. This empathy is a
warm feeling. When we empathize with the agent, we come to share this
warm feeling. And this empathetic warm feeling constitutes moral
approval. In contrast, unempathic actions manifest a coldness toward
others. Since moral approval and disapproval enter into the making of
moral judgments, empathy also enters into our understanding of
moral claims (2010, 53). Slote believes this accounts for why moral
judgments have motivating force for us. Roughly, the reason is that the
underlying empathic response motivates us to do things that we judge to
be morally right (2010, 54).
Given this account of what moral approval is, its not surprising that
Slote believes empathy can explain our intuitions and judgments. More
precisely, (p.114) differences in (the strength of) our empathic
reactions (or tendencies to react) to various situations correspond pretty
well to differences in the (normative) moral evaluations we tend to
make about those situations (Slote 2010, 21). For example, we naturally
flinch more strongly from causing harm to someone than from allowing
the same harm to happen. This, for Slote, basically accounts for the
commonsense deontological distinction between the seriousness of the
wrong of doing harm rather than allowing it to happen. Slote defends the
following normative thesis tying moral status of actions with empathy or
its absence:
actions are morally wrong and contrary to moral obligation if, and
only if, they reflect or exhibit or express an absence (or lack) of fully
developed empathic concern for (or caring about) others on the part
of the agent. (2007, 31)
So even though Slote fully acknowledges that (natural) empathy, even
when fully developed, is influenced by factors like similarity and
distance, he believes that it offers a criterion of rightness.
Does unregulated empathy really play the sort of role in moral
psychology Slote claims it does? There is good reason to doubt it. First,
empathy is neither necessary nor sufficient for moral approval, either of
actions or agents. Its not necessary, since it is possible for us to approve
of an action that isnt empathically motivated (so that there is no
agential warmth for us to catch). Surely somebody incapable of
empathy can do the right thing, and not just for fear of punishment
either. I see no reason to deny someone could desire to be morally good
without feeling empathy or that such desire could motivate one. There is
something to Kants insistence that acting out of duty is morally
praiseworthy, and in some cases we might approve of it more than acting
out of empathy. I dont want you to refrain from taking my things just
because you think Id feel bad if you did so. Second, empathy isnt
sufficient for approval, since it is possible for us to disapprove of an
action that is empathically motivated. Think of a mother who
empathizes strongly with her daughter and therefore elbows everyone
elses child out of the way to get her a place in college. (Recall that Slote
endorses the partiality of immediate empathy.) The same goes naturally
for disapproval. Bad people, much less people doing the wrong thing,
need not be cold-hearted. The Tutsi shooting the Hutu in front of his
family may be full of empathy toward the victim, but nevertheless
choose to follow orders.
The second problem with Slotes account of approval is that moral
disapproval isnt necessarily a cold feeling, nor approval warm
(whatever exactly these characterizations mean). Indeed, it neednt have
any particular phenomenal quality, even if occurrent. Further, feelings
of coldness or warmth may be (p.115) caused by one thing or another,
such as (perhaps) empathy with someone elses empathic feelings, but
that doesnt mean they are about anything. After all, literally feeling cold
isnt about anythingits not, for example, about the north wind that
causes the feeling. Nor, relatedly, is it clear that Slotean psychological
weather conditions motivate us in the way that moral approval and
disapproval do. If contemplating someone gives me a chill, why not
contemplate something warmer rather than punish or blame the
unempathetic person? For all these reasons, moral approval and
disapproval are much better understood in terms of reactive attitudes we
expect of each other, as discussed above.
What about Slotes empathic criterion of rightness? Focusing on only
one of the many cases that he presents may suffice to bring out the
problems with it. Comparing the My Lai killings and bombing civilians,
he says that since face-to-face killer demonstrates a greater lack of
(normal or fully developed) empathy, than the person who kills from the
air (Slote 2007, 25), it is harder for us to empathize with the former, so
there is a stronger moral obligation to refrain from killing face to face. I
believe Slote is correct in his hypothesis about our natural empathic
reactions, but wrong about the normative facts of the case. It is not the
case that our obligation not to kill an innocent person is stronger when
we can do so face to face than when we can do so by pressing a button
far away (lets say, to update the example, by a drone strike).
To see this more clearly, we have to focus on just the relevant difference
between the cases. So lets say that inFace to Face, a renegade soldier
guns down an Afghan family in person, in full knowledge that they are
not dangerous to anyone, just in order to relieve anger and frustration.
In Drone, a renegade drone controller in Miami remotely fires a missile
at an Afghan family hut (knowing of but without seeing the family
inside), in full knowledge that they are not dangerous to anyone, just in
order to relieve anger and frustration. If we try to empathize with the
killer in each case, we may indeed catch more of a chill in Face to Face,
in which the soldier must surely be more callous or hardened to pull the
trigger. If Slote is right, the soldier in Face to Face thus has a stronger
obligation not to kill than the controller in Drone. If, on the other hand,
we regulate our empathy and put ourselves to the position of the family
members as they are about to be killed or in the position of someone
who cares about them, we will, I believe, have just as strong a negative
reaction toward the agent in both cases. After all, though the action is
different, the intended consequences and purposes are identical (and
thus the underlying maxims relevantly similar).
On reflection, I believe it borders on the absurd to think that there is a
difference in strength of obligation. Surely the civilians have just a
strong a right not to be killed by missile as by bullet! I would object just
as strongly to my son being killed by any means whatsoever, the purpose
being the same, and (p.116) Id be right to do so. So Slotes view must
be mistaken. Immediate empathy is no guide to moral rightness.6

(b) Cultural Transmission Accounts

As I noted in the introduction, Jesse Prinz makes what is perhaps the
most systematic case against the importance of empathy for morality. I
agree with his claim that empathy isnt constitutive of moral sentiments.
But what about explanation? Prinz argues that on-line empathy cannot
be causally necessary for moral judgment or approval. He notes that
there may be so many victims you cant possibly empathize with all of
them. On the other hand, we may approve of an action that causes
suffering (2011a, 220). Neither of these cases poses a challenge to NCES.
First, the two-stage model says that we judge on the basis of more or
less ideal-regulated empathy in small worlds and then make use of
principles in large-scale situations, so we need not try to empathize with
all. Second, ideal-regulated empathy with, say, the anger of a victim may
indeed lead us to approve of punishment that causes the perpetrator to
suffer. Once we leave behind the hedonic empathy model, there is no
reason to think empathy couldnt result in approval of causing suffering
in some cases.
Prinz might grant these points, but offers further cases in which it seems
empathy cannot explain our judgments: What if you are the victim of a
crime yourself? (2011a, 220) And what about sacrificing one person to
save fiveif we empathize impartially, shouldnt we be willing to do so
(2011b)? Yet many people have nonconsequentialist intuitions about
such cases. These cases pose a prima facie challenge to an empathy-
based explanation, but I believe that they can be accounted for. In the
first-person case, a direct role for empathy is indeed precluded.
However, the relevant question is: what explains the difference between
non-moral and moral disapproval of someone who harms me? The
natural answer, according to NCES, is that I morally disapprove of
something done to me when I would morally disapprove of the same
thing done to someone elsewhen what matters is the action and its
motives and consequences, not the fact that I am the victim. And this
takes us back to empathy-based disapproval. Second, I argue elsewhere
that empathizing with anticipated reactive attitudes predicts
nonconsequentialist responses in many (p.117) casesalthough from a
hedonic perspective it makes no difference, when it comes to reactive
attitudes, being hurt as a means for someone elses good is very different
from being hurt as a side effect. Thats why regulated reactive empathy
may lead us to disapprove of sacrificing one to save many.
Another possible objection, more in the vein of Shaun Nichols (2004), is
that NCES is cognitively too demanding to account for early emergence
of moral judgment in children. Emotion regulation by reference to an
ideal perspective certainly goes beyond small childrens capacities. But
that only entails defective spontaneous (that is, unlearned) moral
judgments, according to NCES, not that they couldnt make judgments at
all. We should bear in mind that empathic reactive attitudes also emerge
at an early age, before or contemporaneously with moral judgment.
According to Martin Hoffman, A simple example of empathic anger is
that of the 17-month-old boy in the doctors office who, on seeing
another child receive an injection, responds by hitting the doctor in
anger. (Hoffman 1987, 55) Less anecdotally, Kiley Hamlin and
coauthors recent studies with infants and toddlers suggest preference
for helpful characters over antisocial characters, and a willingness to
punish antisocial ones (Hamlin, Wynn, Bloom, & Mahajan 2011). I
believe that these observations are plausibly manifestations of empathic
(proto-) anger toward antisocial charactersmore plausibly than
manifestations of evaluative judgment, as the authors themselves
believe. This is further supported by more recent results, according to
which infants dont dislike bad treatment of individuals who are
dissimilar to them (and thus are harder to empathize with) (Hamlin,
Mahajan, Liberman, & Wynn 2013).
Finally, it is clear that when Prinz talks about empathy, he has
immediate empathy in mind. He says that [a]s I will use the term,
empathy requires a kind of emotional mimicry and explicitly rules out
what Ive called truth-adjusted empathy as a form of empathy (Prinz
2011b, 212). And I agree that immediate empathy is problematic. So to
some extent, my disagreement with Prinz is merely verbal. But since
many of Prinzs arguments are general enough to target regulated
empathy, there is also substantive disagreement.
So, it seems that NCES survives the explanatory challenges that Prinz
(rightly) raises for simple empathy-views such as Slotes account. But
how does it compare with Prinzs own explanatory account? His view is a
species of what Ill call the Cultural Transmission theory (CT). For
Prinz, moral judgments consist in emotional responses. We dont need
to empathize when we judge, since moral response is linked to action-
types (Prinz 2011b, 212). His view seems to be that we simply associate
a negative response with certain act-types, so that it gets triggered by
classifying something as falling under them. But how do we come to
associate blame and praise with certain act-types? Prinz appeals to social
conditioning: when parents punish a child for (p.118) something, the
child associates fear, sadness, and anguish with that type of action and is
motivated to avoid them (Prinz 2011a, 221; cf. Prinz 2007, 3537).
Alternatively, children may simply imitate the anger of their parents
toward something (Prinz 2011b, 229). And why do the parents associate
blame with theft, for example? Here culture comes into the picture.
Norms get culturally transmitted from generation to generation, and
consequently vary from place to place, although some may be more
common due to their resonance with non-transmitted affective
responses. On this picture, the emotional responses that constitute
judgment are not evolutionary adaptations (unlike for Haidt [2012], for
example), but byproducts of exercising capacities evolved for other
purposes. For example, guilt is a form of sadness caused by hurting
those one cares about and being rejected by those one depends on (such
as parents).
Nicholss (2004) variant of CT begins with the assumption that there are
a variety of norms that individuals subscribe to. (Unfortunately, he
never explains what he takes norms or norm-acceptance to consist in.)
Norms prohibit and permit certain actions. When the actions they
prohibit are independently emotionally upsetting, we regard the norms
as being non-conventionalthey dont just hold because of some
authority says so or locally. Moral norms are a subset of these
sentimental rules. When we make moral judgments, we apply
sentimental rulesunlike for Haidt or Prinz, no on-line emotion is
needed (Nichols 2004, 2529). This account presupposes that we have
norms independently of emotional responses. Instead of asking about
the origin of norms, Nichols tells an epidemiological story about why
certain norms prevail. The answer is that norms that resonate with our
(independent) affective reactions enjoy greater cultural fitness and are
thus likely to be passed on from generation to generation (Nichols 2004,
ch. 78). Some of these affective reactions result from contagious
distress, which explains why we typically regard (norm-forbidden)
harmful actions as morally wrong. (Here theres a place for a kind of
immediate empathy in Nicholss view.)
How do the CT accounts compare with NCES? It is evident that NCES
has higher explanatory ambitions, since it offers an account of the origin
and not merely the survival of norms. People originally come to have a
moral norm (a normative, authority-independent expectation that
everyone refrain from doing something) when they (more or less)
impartially empathize with those affected by paradigm instances of an
act-type. Although the epidemiological framework that Nichols and
Prinz employ is plausible in many cases, when it comes to moral norms,
it is very implausible that people start out with a large body of random
norms that are then winnowed down to those that resonate with our
(culture-independent) emotions. Further, people can judge that
something is morally wrong when it goes against the norms that have
been culturally transmitted to them. This is hard for the sentimental
rules account (p.119) to accommodate. Finally, Nicholss version of CT
also shares the weakness of immediate empathy accounts. Appealing to
immediate empathetic reactions or personal distress plainly cant
explain why we embrace norms that prohibit harming or cheating of
those we dont naturally empathize with. The distress of the distant just
isnt as contagious as the distress of the near, yet I dont adopt a rule
according to which it is less bad to hurt the distant as a means to
advancing ones self-interest, say. So again, NCES offers at least some
explanatory advantages. I cant claim that the issue is in any way settled
at present. More empirical evidence is needed.

4. Conclusion: Vindicating or Debunking Moral

Judgment?
In this paper, Ive developed the classical sentimentalist hypothesis that
empathic sentiments are more or less successfully regulated by
reference to an ideal perspective fundamentally explain why we make
the moral judgments we do. Suppose that this explanation is correct.
What does it mean for the justification of the emotion-based moral
judgments? On the critical side, Jesse Prinz argues that basis in natural
empathyundermines the justification of moral judgments. He notes that
our capacity to experience vicarious emotions varies as a function of
such factors as social proximity and salience (Prinz 2011a, 223). As a
consequence, [w]e are grotesquely partial to the near and dear so that
we use empathy as an epistemic guide at the risk of profound moral
error (Prinz 2011a, 224). There is also experimental evidence that the
here-and-now bias of empathy results in judgments we consider unfair
on reflection (Batson, Klein, Highberger, & Shaw 1995). Further, when it
comes to justice in particular, empathy can be misleading. Like some
proponents of ethics of care, Prinz contrasts justice with empathy.
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). Indeed, it
is intrinsically biased in the sense that essentially a dyadic emotion,
regulating the responses between two individuals, and its function is,
arguably, to align the emotions of people in a close personal
relationship (Prinz 2011a, 229). So empathy has at best an incidental
link to morality and misleads moral judgment.
Is there anything to be said in favor of empathy when it comes to
justification? Classical sentimentalists say surprisingly little about this
topic, although they are not shy to employ language that implies moral
knowledge. Hume may have felt that providing justification was beyond
his brief as an anatomist of morality (T 3.6). When we begin to justify
moral belief, we give (p.120) voice to our own convictions, abandoning
the outsiders theoretical perspective. At the very end of the Treatise,
Hume nevertheless permits himself to say a few words from within an
engaged perspective. He notes that once we see the origin of our moral
judgments in (what we would call) empathy felt from the common point
of view, we must certainly be pleasd to see moral distinctions derivd
from so noble a source (T 3.6). Again, our empathy-driven moral
sense must certainly acquire new force, when reflecting on itself, it
approves of those principles, from whence it is derivd, and finds nothing
but what is great and good in its rise and origin (ibid.).
This coherentist suggestion is that when we engage in a process of what
would now be called wide reflective equilibrium, in which we try to find
the best fit for our particular and general moral convictions and known
psychological and sociological facts, including facts about the origin of
our moral convictions (Daniels 1979), we will reflectively endorse those
moral convictions that result from ideal-regulated empathy. On the
other hand, if we come to believe that some moral belief of ours reflects
partiality or the influence of mere distance, we lose confidence in it.
There is thus a fundamental difference, when it comes to justification,
between beliefs based on natural empathy and those based on regulated
empathy. The latter kind of beliefs are not subject to the kinds of bias
that Prinz points out. Consequently, when we try to get our beliefs to
line up in wide reflective equilibrium, we may opt for embracing rather
than rejecting judgments based on ideal-regulated empathy. In that case,
we will see that origin in regulated empathic emotions vindicates our
moral beliefs rather than debunking them.
I will finish with a final objection from Prinz. In his papers against
empathy, he does, in fact, briefly consider a version of Smiths impartial
spectator account (Prinz 2011b) and Humes appeal to the common
point of view. Heres what he has to say about the latter:
As attractive as this idea is to a liberal readership, it is bad
psychology. The fact is, we rarely adopt such a point of view, and
empathy is probably the greatest impediment. We can empathize
with members of the out-group but only by making their
similarities salient. . . . But there is no way to cultivate empathy for
every person in need, and the focus on affected individuals distracts
 us from systemic problems that can be addressed only by
interventions at an entirely different scale. (Prinz 2011a, 228)
If what Ive argued above is on the right track, Prinz here draws a false
contrast between empathizing and adopting a common point of view.
(For Hume and Smith, it would certainly be inconceivable that we could
separate the two.) He is right, to be sure, that natural empathy can be
one obstacle to ideal-regulated (p.121) empathy, given all its biases. But
the answer is not to shut out empathy, but to use it wiselyto try hard
to bear in mind not only what is in front of our eyes and to rely on
general principles when in doubt about ones ability to adopt an
intersubjectively sharable perspective. If we are able to do so, empathy
although of a cool and challenging variety that may require looking
beyond the individual in front of usdoes, after all, merit some of the
enthusiasm it has lately received.

(1) . It will not do to define empathy in normative terms, as Simon

Baron-Cohen does: Empathy is our ability to identify what someone
else is thinking or feeling and to respond to their thoughts and feelings
with anappropriate emotion (2011, 16; my emphasis). This trivializes
the task of arguing for the normative importance of empathyof course
we should respond to the state of mind of others with an appropriate
emotion. It also vitiates Baron-Cohens own claim of having a scientific
measure for empathy, given that the appropriateness of emotion isnt a
matter of science.
(2) . This crucial distinction is lost when Baron-Cohen (2011) lumps
psychopaths and autists together as having zero degree of empathy.
(3) . For the distinction between self-focused and other-focused empathy, see,
e.g., Gordon 1995.
(4) . In my view, Sober and Wilson (1998, 234235) thus confuse things when
they use the label sympathy for what Ive called truth-adjusted empathy.
(5) . Roughly, the idea is that if we just focus on the individual case, we may
disapprove of the enforcement of property rights. But if we consider the
benefits of the convention-based scheme of property rights, invented by people
seeking their enlightened self-interest, as a whole, we approve of it by virtue of
empathizing with the beneficiaries.
(6) . There may nevertheless be some temptation to think that the soldier must
at least be a worse person, being more callous or hardened. But I doubt that,
too. Killing by pressing a button is cowardly for many reasons. It is said that
Hitler was shielded from personally encountering the consequences of his
vicious orders. I dont think his reluctance to face the suffering and terror he
caused made him any better a person.
At the Empathetic Center of Our Moral
Lives
K. Richard Garrett
George Graham
Introduction
One of the most hotly debated topics about the role of empathy in moral
judgment and motivation is whether empathy is somehow central to
morality. Not a mere adjunct, but central. Some say that empathy is not
and likely should not be at the center of our moral lives. Not only,
writes Jesse Prinz, is there little evidence for the claim that empathy is
necessary, there is also reason to think that empathy can interfere with
the ends of morality. Prinz cautions: Placing empathy at the center of
our moral lives may be ill-advised (Prinz 2011a: 211).
Of course, some disagreements about the role of empathy in our moral
lives may stem from the fact that two people may use the same word to
mean different things. As Alvin Goldman puts it, the term empathy
does not mean the same thing in every mouth (Goldman 2011: 31). In
such cases, an apparent disagreement about empathys moral role may
not be about morality and empathy, but about how empathy itself is best
understood, independent of any possible moral role.
We assume that it is best to think of empathy or the human capacity for
empathy as follows: Empathizing with another person is the paradigm
case or (p.123) prototype of empathy. When empathizing with another,
an individual takes the subjective perspective of that second person. This
may be automatic and unreflective or, on occasion, deliberate, reflective,
and effortful. The empathetic person reflects on the state of mind of the
other, imagines how things are (were, or will be) for that person, and
imagines how the empathizer himself or herself would think or feel if he
or she was in their shoes or situation.
Empathy may sometimes be restricted to another persons affective or
emotional states, or states of distress, but it needs not be. One may
empathically enter into another persons more global frame of mind
(their thoughts, desires, and so on) and not just into anothers
emotional states or states of distress. One may also empathize with
anothers happiness and feeling of psychological wellbeing. Empathy
may also be focused on oneself, wherein the target or focus is ones
remembered past or imagined future. Empathetic impulses may be had
toward nonhuman sentient animals. But the central case or paradigm
phenomenon of empathy, as we shall understand things, is that empathy
consists of imaginative identification with the subjective perspective and
situation of another person.
It has been debated whether someone could empathetically identify with
another persons pain or distress (when the other is in pain or distress)
and, yet, be an empathetic torturer. We assume not. We assume that
empathy is no mere matching or mirroring of anothers mental states.
We presuppose that if a person enters empathetically into anothers
state of mind and the other is in pain or distress, some impulse or desire
to assist the other is part of being empathetic. Again, though, the waters
of discussions of empathy are muddied in the literature by theorists who
use the word empathy as if it can apply to someone who imaginatively
matches or mirrors anothers distress but is devoid of any sort of pro-
other impulse or motivation to help the other. We assume that
imagining yourself in anothers frame or state of mind, when the other
is distressed, carries with it an impulse to help the other person, which
may vary in strength or be checked on reflection, but could not possibly
lead to a desire to torture that individual and still be proper to empathy
itself. Likewise, we assume that in imagining oneself in anothers frame
of mind when they are in a positive state, the empathizer may have the
impulse to reinforce or support that state.
Enough said, for the moment, about our use of a term or understanding
of a phenomenon. Our aim here is to make a case for the proposal that
empathy (given our understanding of the phenomenon, to be added to
below) ought to be at the center of our moral lives. Or, more specifically,
empathy ought to be at the center of our moral lives if one agrees, as we
ourselves do, with R. M. Hare that if we are to conduct ourselves in a
truly or fully moral manner, we have to know what it is like for [the
other person] (Hare 1981: 91). We have (p.124) to empathize with
them. And if one also assumes (as we do) that, as James Rachels puts it
in his Problems from Philosophy, from a moral point of view everyone
counts equally, even strangers . . . who have no ability to harm or hurt
us (Rachels 2005: 184). If the moral principle or premise of the equal
worth of persons, that is, of each and every individual person counting,
from the moral point of view, for one and none for more than one, is
taken seriously, then empathy must also be taken seriously, morally
speaking. It should, indeed, be at the center of our moral lives. Just what
such centering means will be discussed in the course of the paper.

I
Suppose your young teenage child deeply desires to go to a certain
excellent film (with their friends) instead of studying for a final exam
that they have very early the next day. If you know just what your child
desires and feels and you had similar experiences as a youngster, and
this helps to explain why you know what it is like to be in their shoes,
and all of this results in your likewise desiring that your child have this
same wonderful experience (of going to the film with their friends), then
this would be a case of empathyagain, as we plan to use this term.
Consider a second scenario. Suppose that, in addition to having empathy
toward the child in their situation, you start reflecting on your childs
future, on the fact that your daughter or son is academically very
talented and earnestly interested in becoming a doctor, and you reflect
further on how extremely competitive getting into a medical school can
be. Moreover, you realize that the final exam the next day could be
critical in their effort to get into medical school. Its for an advanced
placement course in biological science. These additional thoughts
concerning your childs desires and future frustrations and upset in
failing to get into a medical school could result in your having empathy
for your childs future and thereby desiring them to take the test
tomorrow in order to avoid future suffering and distress. In this future-
orientated way, your empathy for your childs desire to go to the film
with their friends would be in conflict with your empathy for the childs
future happiness. Furthermore, further reflection may lead you to see
that it would be better for the child from the childs own standpoint and
likely greatest happiness to forgo the present anticipation of pleasure
rather than to suffer as a result of career aspirations that may be
permanently blocked. So, out of empathy for your childs future desires
and future happiness, you may reflectively control your empathetic
impulse toward the childs current desire to go to the film with friends.
(p.125) We can even suppose that there is a third scenario. In this case,
after your child has accepted your decision that they give up the film,
you learn that the same test will be given after the weekend on Monday
by the same teacher. So, you call the teacher and explain the situation
regarding your child and you ask the teacher if your child might not take
the test on Monday instead of Friday (the next day). The teacher is
accommodating and kindly grants your request. In this case, your child
can see the film, take the test Monday, and have the whole weekend to
prepare for it. So, we can imagine how still further reflection plus some
empirical investigation changes your decision once again. All along, your
empathy for or imaginative identification with your child is the drive
behind your actions.
These three possible scenarios, as homely as they are, teach us that the
marriage between empathy and reflection/investigation is not only a
possible marriage, but may be very good marriage for everyone involved.
It may help to promote the best interest of the person toward which one
has an empathetic reaction.
What we now need to do is to characterize empathy in a form that is
distinctively human and reflective. This is the kind of empathy
illustrated above. What makes such empathy distinctively human and
reflective is that only a creature with a descriptive or propositional
language can reflect on the other person (and they on themselves) in the
manner above. After all, there is no evidence whatever that nonhuman
animals can describe the world, themselves, or others or discriminate
between descriptions that are true and descriptions that are false.
Everything distinctively human depends upon such a language: religion,
politics, law, science, technology, philosophy, and art all presuppose an
ability to describe both what is real (true) or what might be real (true)
and what is entirely imaginary or fictional (false).
Having what we here are calling a descriptive language is precisely what
permits us to tell others how we feel, what we consciously think, what
we consciously experience and, thereforewhat it is like to be us from
the inside. This is how the child (in the story above), we assume, is able
to communicate to the parent what they was experiencing internally.
Without the childs words or talk to go on (with only facial expressions,
bodily postures, behaviors and the like) a parent would have little or no
clue about what is going on internally in the child, little or no clue that
all the psychological commotion was about going to the movies with
their friends. Indeed, we persons could not even so much as have certain
feelings, certain experiences, beliefs, values, or thoughts if we did not
possess a descriptive language. We could not for example have feelings
about what is happening in China, about landing on the moon, about the
president of United Statesor about attending medical school. Nor could
we describe to ourselves the various nonverbal feelings, thoughts, or
desires (p.126) that we have without a descriptive language. So, having
a descriptive language has been utterly transformative for humankind
and, in particular, it has radically transformed the nature and complexity
of our capacity for empathy with other persons.
What then is empathy of the distinctively human and reflective kind?
We may characterize empathy of the distinctively human and reflective
kind as follows: When we are empathetic in the distinctively human way
we not only imaginatively share anothers inner life and emotions, but
we do so in a fully descriptive and appreciative way, and we will therein
have the very same desires for them that they have for themselves and
thereby a very powerful inclination to act on their behalf. So, there is
nothing to prevent us from merging empathy or empathetic behavior
with the analysis, investigation, or rational assessment of our conduct.
To be fully human, our capacity for empathy, in fact, needs to be infused
with reflection. Stripped of our descriptive powers, we may share in the
sorts of non-descriptive empathetic capacities of which certain species of
nonhuman animals seem capable. Yet, when infused with such
descriptive powers we can, as it were, imagine being our child happily
and successfully pursuing our career as a doctor and we can equally
imagine being our child and being permanently blocked from our career
as a doctor, with all of the consequent frustration and misery. That said
we now turn to examine the role of empathy in our moral life.

II
In order to examine the role of empathy in our moral life, and the
reasons why we believe that empathy should be at the center of our
moral life, we need first to consider the concept of what truly is best for
or in the best interest of a person. This is the concept whose application
helped the parent in the example above to realize that the child may
need to forgo going to the movies with their friends.
Let us begin by noting that it follows analytically from the very concept
of what is truly best for some person that nothing better can be so much
as conceived. If something truly is best, its the best, period. Nothing else
is better.
To be sure, it may seem that the application of such a concept of the best
for us is beyond human knowledge or any kind of certainty. However,
further reflection reveals that this concept, nonetheless, has an
important role to play in guiding our ordinary everyday actions, and we
often understand that our daily practices assume that the concept is
applicable. Consider the following simple example: Barry is all alone
sleeping on the couch in his home, when suddenly he wakes up and
becomes aware that there is a raging fire all around him. Under the
circumstances, we can plainly see that what is truly best for (p.127)
Barry, at that particular time, is simply to get out of the house as fast as
he can. Although we can conceive of some conduct it might have been
better for Barry to perform: For example, we can conceive of a possible
world in which he could just push a button and the fire would go out and
we can imagine other scenarios in which getting out of the house as
soon as possible would not be what is truly best for him. Nonetheless,
under the present circumstances it is hard to imagine anything better
that he might do.
The example of Barry and others like it are quite compatible with the
fact that there will be situations where we are completely at a loss to
know or even guess what might be the truly best thing for us to do. But,
and this is crucial, this is not always or even usually the case. There are
many cases where we can be extremely certain or at least quite certain
enough that we are doing what is truly best for ourselves or another. We
indeed make this assumption when were making careful, well-thought-
out decisions about medical care for ourselves or for loved ones,
decisions about buying a home, decisions about our childrens schooling,
and much, much more.
We can, moreover, improve our ability to determine what is truly best
for ourselves by becoming more rational in examining and assessing
ourselves and our circumstances. By being rational here we mean
reasoning in ways that are likely to lead to the truth or insights about
self and circumstance, and irrational would simply mean to reason in
ways that are likely to lead to falsehood. Thus, the more informed we are
about our situation and a particular problem at hand and the more
knowledge we have about the world, about ourselves and about other
persons, the better off we will be at determining what is truly best for
ourselves or for another. Again, in many cases, we can discuss or consult
experts on the matter. And we can become more skilled at distinguishing
good reasoning (i.e., arguments that are very likely to lead to the truth)
from bad reasoning (i.e., arguments that are very likely to lead to
falsehood). We can cultivate habits of action and mind that will
eliminate our intellectual vices, for instance our judgmental egotism,
our lack of epistemic humility, our out-of-control passions. And we can
likewise cultivate intellectual virtues or habits of action and mind that
will enhance our performance at good reasoning, for example listening
very carefully to others, being open to completely new ways of seeing
things, valuing truth as a supreme good, and having the courage to admit
that we are wrong (when this is the case). In these and various related
ways, we can get better and better at determining what is truly best for
ourselves as well as what is truly best for other people.
Thus aiming for what is truly best for ourselves or for others is not only
something we do and should always try to do, it is something we can
improve at doing. So, aiming at what is truly best for ourselves and for
others is entirely realistic and desirable.

(p.128) III
In order to better understand the concept of what is truly best, we now
need to consider the kind of things to which the concept applies. For
example, a mechanic may say The truly best oil for your car is such and
such oil. However, what the mechanic means is simply that such and
such oil is least expensive, lasts longer, is most environmentally
friendly, will enable your car to perform at its best, and so on. They dont
really mean it is truly best for your car, but rather that it is best for you
and/or other people. If, of course, we imagine that your car is conscious
(that there is something it is like to be your car) and our car could suffer
or feel pain or undergo pleasure or joy, then we could sensibly talk about
what was truly good or bad, better or best or worst for your car from
your cars standpoint. So, we can talk about what is truly best for your
car or anything, only so far as your car or anything else is something for
which we can have empathy, that is, something that has an inner life or
subjective perspective. This is hardly surprising if we consider that in
both cases (in the case of empathy and in the case of what is truly best
for something), we are dealing with a being that is conscious, a being
that can suffer or experience pain and that can experience joy or
pleasure.
This means that we can talk about what is truly best for something only
so far as we have access to that things inner life or subjective
perspective through empathy. Empathy is the doorway to understanding
what is truly best for any creature or person.
But what has all this to do with empathy being at the center of our moral
lives? To help to answer this question, we need to consider what it
means for human beings to live in various forms of union and ideally in
interpersonal harmony.

IV
There are different ways in which two or more people or even a whole
village, society, or nation may cohere or form various kinds of union.
There is, for example, such a thing as honor among thieves, where
mutual dependency can hold all kinds of people together, people who
care nothing about each other and have not the slightest empathy for
one another. In such cases, people are simply useful instruments for one
another. There are other ways in which people may be bound together.
For example, a culture may speak of peoples moral obligation to help
one another and to avoid harming one another. And we can further
imagine that such a culture or community may teach that what is
morally good is good in and of itself apart from any considerations
(p.129) of empathy. So, we can certainly imagine that societies are
variously bound together by some sort of quasi-moral glue that has
nothing whatsoever to do with empathy.
At the same time, to the extent that we may empathize with other
persons, we will not harm them and, indeed, we will try to help them.
Consequently, it would seem that a family, tribe, society, nation, or
world that is bound together by empathy will turn out to be the best of
social worlds. A world in which the glue, as it were, that unites people
and holds them in union does so in a manner infused by peoples
appreciation of and reflection upon what it is like to be other persons
to possess anothers desires, beliefs, emotions, and so on.
However, there is a social complication here in the very possibility of
union among persons, namely the phenomena of genuine conflicts
between what is truly best for one person, group, family, or nation and
what is truly best for some other person, group, family, or nation. In
order to make this problem or complication entirely clear, we need to
consider the difference between a conflict that is genuine or real and one
that is artificial or fictitious.
Suppose a woman or man wishes to become a senator and has an
opportunity to do so. The husband or wife of the person in question may
fear that this will negatively impact upon their relationship with one
another, their lives in general, and upon the lives of their children. So,
much marital discussion ensues and each partner, failing to understand
the other, may, at times, become angry and alienated from their spouse.
However, suppose the couple goes to an excellent therapist who helps
them work through the problem carefully, thoughtfully, and
empathetically. And suppose that after extensive sessions, the husband
or wife (whichever one was fearful) is subsequently willing to take a
chance and go along with his/her spouses becoming a senator. In this
case, let us assume that as things turn out, the fears of the husband or
wife were quite unfounded and that in fact the spouses becoming a
senator positively impacts upon all of their lives. In retrospect, they all
come to realize that there was no genuine conflict of interests, only an
apparent conflict of interests.
Note how empathy is an important key here. Without empathizing with
one another, each spouse would only be able to really understand their
own personal feelings and desires and may have viewed the other as
being quite irrational or unreasonable with the result that no resolution
would have been reached. Indeed, we may go so far as to say that if each
party has enough empathy for the other person or persons in any
situation, then with sufficient patience and talking there is an extremely
good chance of resolving the conflict in question. We may even say that
if there was enough empathy in the world at large, then people would
never deliberately harm one another and would always be willing to try
to help one another when the conflict was merely apparent. This would
be a tremendous step forward for all of us, since many (p.130) conflicts
that arise between people are, like the above example, only apparent and
not genuine or real.
Unfortunately, things are not quite so simple. Genuine conflicts of
interest are not conflicts that will go away if only the parties caught up
in the conflict have sufficient skills, if only they have their passions and
emotions under control, or if only they are open and willing and able to
listen empathetically to one another. These are the kind of prima facie
intractable conflicts that we must ultimately consider in order to see just
how far empathy can take us.
Lets start with a simple example. Suppose two friends are camping out
in the woods after a long hike and that they are at least 5 miles from any
drugstore, hospital, or physician. Unfortunately, they unknowingly settle
down in an area that is infested with rattlesnakes. Consequently, the two
of them no sooner fall asleep, when they both awake from fatal
rattlesnake bites. Even worse, they discover that they only have enough
anti-venom with them to save one of them. If they try to save both, by
sharing the anti-venom, it is very clear that both of them will die. So, at
best, only one of them can be saved. Here we have a genuine conflict of
interest, a conflict of interest that will not go away or be dissolved by all
of the talking and empathy in the world. In the end, at least one of them
will die.
Many would argue that this kind of an example shows the moral limits
of empathy. In one sense this is true, but in another sense it is far from
the truth. It is true that all the empathy in the world will not eliminate
such genuine conflicts of interest. Genuine conflicts of interest are not
dissolvable through mere empathy alone. Moreover, such genuine
conflicts are a permanent feature of human existence. However, as we
shall see, genuine conflicts of interest are resolvable, resolvable in ways
that make for the best world that humans can imagine constructing or
bringing about.

V
Suppose in our actual world we possessed a special sort of empathy. This
special sort of empathy would be empathy of a type that is no mere
empathy but that reflectively takes account of what is truly best for each
and every person. What we are imagining here is empathy that is
tantamount to assuming the equal worth of persons. Let us call such
empathy morally sufficient empathy or simply sufficient empathy.
What exactly is meant by the words sufficient empathy? Sufficient to
accomplish what is the question? And the answer to the question is:
Sufficient to produce a world in which there is maximum harmony
among persons.
(p.131) Suppose that you had so much empathy for another person that
they became, to you or in your own mind, the moral and spiritual
equivalent of yourself. Return to the two friends bitten by rattlesnakes
deep in the woods with only enough anti-venom to save one. Suppose
that each friend had so much empathy for the other that each friend
cared about their friend as much as they cared about themselves. Thus,
for example, the death of the friend would be as horrible to each of them
as their own death. Under such conditions, we can easily imagine that
they would resolve their problem by according an equal chance for
survival to each one of them, that is, they would let random chance
decide their fates. Since, for each one, their own death and the death of
their friend would be equally horrible, by, say, flipping a coin they could
accept their fate, either way, with grace and peace. This is sufficient
empathy at work. In a world in where each person had sufficient
empathy for every other person, this would amount to a world in which
each and every human life has an equal worth for everyone.
So, lets imaginatively extend our concept of sufficient empathy to the
entire world and consider the consequences. There are all kinds of
genuine conflicts of interest throughout the globe, genuine conflicts of
interest between and within individuals, between and within families,
groups, organizations, political parties, religious groups, townships,
states, and nations. So, the world is full of strife as a result. Nonetheless,
we can at least imagine a world in which human beings have evolved or
developed to a point where each and every human being has sufficient
empathy for every other human being. Put another way, the worth of
every human being for every other human being would be equal to their
own worth. Since equals are equal to equals, it follows that if every other
human being in the world had the same value to you as you have to
yourself, then everybody in the whole world would necessarily have an
equal worth. No one in the whole world would have more (or less) worth
for you than anyone else. So, we are trying to imagine a world in which
everyone has sufficient empathy for everyone else, a world where
everyone has an equal worth for everyone else.
The notion of such a world is immensely complicated of course, and
there are terms in its description that need careful analysis of a sort that
we cannot provide here. But let us proceed to outline or sketch what we
have in mind and consider the idealistic possibility of sufficient
empathy.
In such a world, no one would deliberately harm anyone else (any more
than they would deliberately harm themselves). Nor would anyone
deliberately fail to help any other person (any more than they would fail
to help themselves). So, in such a world there would be what may be
called maximum harmony of everyones best interest. However, is such
a world even close to being empirically (p.132) possible, even in the
remote future? Can we expect humans to evolve to such a high moral
state?
There are reasons to believe that we might. In the first place, it would be
the best sort of world to live in, since everybody would gain from a world
in which there is maximum harmony. After all, in such a world, conflicts
of interest would either be dissolvable (in most cases of apparent
conflicts) or at least resolvable (in most cases of genuine conflicts). So,
there would be no war, no strife, no hostility, and no harm deliberately
done to one another. Moreover, everybody would help everybody else as
far as possible. Each person living in such a world would surely benefit
immensely and be far happier than the world in which we currently live.
It would be a world of win-win or gain-gain for everyone.
However, and here is the rub, how do we get from the world we actually
live in, a world filled with greed, vanity, hostility, bigotry, hatred, and,
above all else, selfishness to the world that we are imagining? How is
such a world possible? After all, as good as such a world might be for
everyone, the question remains: Who is going to take the first step?
Who is going to cultivate such incredible empathy so as to have such
empathy for each and every person in the world? Who may make such a
supreme sacrifice, if, indeed, such a thing as sufficient empathy for each
and every person in the entire world is at all possible and not just some
delicious pie-in-the-sky ideal that philosophers, such as the two of us,
have dreamed up? Would not such a sacrificing person (or persons) be
trampled by those around them who are anxiously looking out for
themselves?
Indeed, it would seem to be a fruitless and impossible sacrifice to try and
have sufficient empathy for the entire world, if what is required in order
to make the sacrifice is the expectable prospect of receiving rewards
from other people. In our woefully morally imperfect world, the reward
for moral behavior often is not the reciprocal and appreciative behavior
from others. So, what then could be the reward?
We claim that the reward is a special kind of personal happiness. Not the
happiness of a happy or pleasurable but transient feeling, but the
happiness that comes from passing positive judgment on [ones] life; . .
. on the living of it and on whether [one] is [deeply] satisfied with its
course and character (Graham 1998: 193; see 192197 for discussion).
This is the happiness that many religious persons have spoken of when
they have described the experience of finding the greatest happiness
through helping and behaving morally toward others and therein giving
happiness to others.
Religions often clothe this claim about human happiness in various
muddled theological and confusing metaphysical garments. These outer
garments, though often perhaps harmless in and of themselves,
sometimes blind many (p.133) proponents of different faiths to the
true virtues of other faiths and consequently have divided people of
different faiths, breeding endless controversy, intolerance, hatred, and
war. What we need today is to see beyond these outer metaphysical
garments and embrace the real core of a claim that can unite us, the
proposition that those who spread happiness enjoy a far deeper and
lasting happiness than other people. Whatever the ultimate nature of
the universe (which is beyond human knowing), what stands fast and
endures above all other truths is the fact, or so we claim is a fact, that
those who have sufficient empathy, those who understand that all
human beings have equal worth, and those who have gotten beyond a
narrow, self-centered existence enjoy the greatest happiness humanly
possible.
Granted this essential truth, our primary goal in life should be to
empathetically value others as if they were ourselves. Such empathetic
valuations will not only produce the greatest happiness for our own
person, but for others as well. Indeed, it quite clearly follows that the
very highest and best gift that we can give any human being is to help
them to have sufficient empathy for each and every other person on the
globe thereby becoming a person who likewise seeks the happiness of
others. In doing this, we not only help them to achieve the greatest
happiness possible, but set them on a path that will help them to help
others to do the same, thereby spreading happiness throughout the
globe.

VI
A grand ideal? Indeed. But there are those who would concede that all of
the consequences adduced above really would occur only if it were
possible to have the kind of sufficient empathy described above. But
they deny that having sufficient empathy (for everyone in the world) is
even close to being humanly possible. We just are not built by nature, by
the circumstances of human culture, or by the demanding character of
life itself to have such sufficient empathy.
In its most extreme form, this objection would say that we are incapable
of having sufficient empathy for even one single other person. But this
extreme form of the objection is clearly mistaken. For many people who
are loving parents or grandparents deeply understand that such empathy
is possible, since they have experienced it firsthand with respect to their
own children or grandchildren.
In a less radical form, the objection may be expressed by saying that our
empathetic concern for individuals can blind us to the common good
and to what we would otherwise take to be morally right. As a
consequence of an over-concern or solicitation for certain specific
individuals, such empathy would incline us to put the wellbeing of some
individuals ahead of others (p.134) by exaggerating the importance of
the individual when compared with the common good.
However, some people can and do come to empathize with whole groups
of persons. This is illustrated by the profound impact of Harriet Beecher
Stowes mid-19th-century novel Uncle Toms Cabin, which was written
prior to the Civil War in United States. This wonderful book enabled
white Americans to understand what it was like to be a slave and thereby
helped people to empathize with an entire group of people. The effect
was so powerful that this single book helped to inspire the movement to
abolish slavery in America.
Equally important is the fact that what we are describing as sufficient
empathy, above all else, is what prompts us to seek, again above all else,
what is truly best for each and every person on each and every occasion,
which is to do all that we can to help them in turn come to have
sufficient empathy for each and every other person. Given this
condition, there is no way that the common good and the good of the
individual can be in competition. Quite to the contrary, to the extent that
we succeed in helping others to have sufficient empathy for each and
every person, we thereby serve the common good throughout the globe.
A final version of the objection to the possibility of having sufficient
empathy for all human beings was posed by David Hume, who famously
pointed out that we have far greater empathy for those close to us in
space and time, or for those, whom he puts it, to which the mind from
long custom has become familiarized, than for those removed from us
(see citation in Morton 2011: 325). What makes Humes observation
appear compelling is that it is in fact quite true of many (or possibly
most) people. After all, it makes good evolutionary sense to say that we
very likely do have a genetic predisposition to be most empathetic to
those closest to us. Moreover, it is factually true that many of our
various cultures reinforce this tendency to be more empathetic to those
belonging to our group or tribe and, in fact, if anything, reinforce our
tendency to be hostile or at least less empathetic to outsiders.
However, the crucial question is not whether in fact many or most
humans are much more empathetic to those who are closer to them in
time and space, but whether or not they have the potential to be equally
empathetic to those who are removed from them in time and space.
It is, indeed, necessary and desirable to have special persons in our lives
such as family and friends. Most people are raised, fed, housed, trained,
loved, and educated by their family, friends, and teachers. All of these
people, close to us in time and space, made extraordinarily important
contributions to our development as persons. We could not have become
the persons we are without such special persons or significant others in
our lives. Indeed, humans would never have evolved into creatures with
a descriptive or propositional language (p.135) had they not lived in
families or small tribes. Nor could they, therefore, have developed
sufficient empathy for anyone else or have developed into moral beings
without family and friends (and others close in time and space) in their
lives. We might call such special persons our primary tribe (see Garrett
1989 for related discussion).
Over time, we come to join other tribes, such as political parties,
religious groups, and the like. And, moreover, we automatically become
part of still other tribes simply as a result of where we live, our
neighborhood, our town or city, our county or state and our nation, and
we can even speak of the international tribe, the tribe which includes the
entire world. Technology has made that world tribe more and more
possible, because as technology develops (especially in the realm of
communication and transportation) time and space shrink and we find
ourselves affected by and interacting with people who live at enormous
distances from us. As this happens, we move more and more toward
both the possibility and the necessity of becoming a single tribe.
Tribes are a good thing. The problem is not with tribes, with
communities that bond, nurture, and connect us, but with tribalism,
with the very tendency of which Hume speaks, namely the tendency to
favor those who are closer to us in time and space or, we might add, in
race, religion, political ideology, and all the rest. Tribalism views
members of other tribes with suspicion, bigotry, hatred and, frequently,
as nonpersons. Tribalism is quite real and it is the biggest threat to the
world today, precisely because it is the biggest threat to a world in which
each person has an equal worth, a world in which there is maximum
harmony.
However, there is a remedy for the disease we might call tribalism. It is
the development of sufficient empathy for each and every person in the
world.
History has shown us again and again that it is indeed quite possible to
go against our natural inclination toward being attached to our own tribe
when doing so is morally unhealthy or contrary to one or another moral
imperative. The very first thing that we need to do is come to see that
those belonging to tribes other than ours (and even engaged in struggles
with our tribes) as human beings just like ourselves. This is the teaching
of the parable of the Good Samaritan in the New Testament. According
to the Gospel of Luke (10: 2937) a traveler (who may or may not be
Jewish) is beaten, robbed, and left half dead along the road. First a priest
and then a Levite come by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a Samaritan
arrives on the scene. Samaritans and Jews generally despised each other,
but the Samaritan helps the injured man. Jesus is described as telling
the parable in response to a question regarding the identity of the
neighbor who Leviticus (19:18) says should be loved. Quite literally,
the meaning here is that anyone who can help or harm us and whom we
in turn can help or harm is our neighbor. The point is made in this way
in order (p.136) to illustrate to the Jewish tribe that those belonging to
the alien Samaritan tribe can be just as loving and kind as can Jews.
The second thing that we must do to overcome tribalism is to practice
sufficient empathy (i.e., regard all others as having an equal worth) with
respect to everyone, no matter who they are or what tribe they belong to.
Even in cases where we dont immediately feel sufficient empathy, we
should act as we would if we had sufficient empathy for the person or
tribe in question.
Something else must also be recognized. Cultivating sufficient empathy
for everyone in the world is a lifetime pursuit. Gautama Buddhas
Eightfold Path is a deep analysis of what humans must do in order to
transform themselves into beings that have sufficient empathy for each
and every conscious living being. We have to understand the truth that
without such sufficient empathy, life is suffering for ourselves and for
others, and we have to understand that the cost of our suffering and the
suffering of others is due to the lack of sufficient empathy. We need to
see how attachment to our fears, desires, hatreds, prejudices, passions in
general, and especially our attachment to ourselves (to the ego) cause
our blindness and our inability to cultivate sufficient empathy. And we
need to see how such passions frequently lurk beneath the surface of
consciousness and need to be brought forth and made part of our daily
awareness, so that we can control them, instead of being controlled by
them (see Garrett 2011 for related discussion).
If we understand that various religious and other communities actually
exist and actually bring about such radical transformations in persons,
then here above all we see that humans really do have the potential to
have sufficient empathy for each and every person in the universe, for
each and every person whose life they can affect.
Thus, we can agree with Hume when he says that most people in fact do
not have sufficient empathy for their neighbor (i.e., for those whose
lives they can affect). But this in no way contradicts the empirically
relevant point that we have the potential for practicing empathy for
every living person in the world, for those whose lives we can affect. And
we have the potential therein for respecting the equal worth of persons.

Conclusion
Jesse Prinz describes his paper on empathy, cited at the beginning of our
paper, as a kind of campaign against empathy, that is, against
empathys occupying a central role in our moral lives (Prinz 2011a: 212).
He also claims empathy is a response directed at individuals, and many
of the most urgent moral events involve large numbers of people (229).
What we really need is an intellectual recognition of our common
humanity (229).
(p.137) One way of reading our chapter is that we agree with Prinz that
we persons need both to recognize our common humanity and to
respond to urgent moral crises facing large numbers of people, but we
disagree that this means that empathy should not play a central role in
our moral lives or behavior. Our capacity for empathy is not necessarily
restricted to our tribe. It is not confined to feeling only for the primary
persons in our life. It is a power of identification with others in a
manner that can respect our equal worth as persons as well as what is in
the best interest of each and every person affected by our actions. It
should not occupy an exclusionary or non-complemented/partner-less
center in our moral lives (for down that path lies tribalism). It should
occupy a center with complementary components, such as commitment
to the equal worth of persons and to our own and other peoples best
interests. Morally sufficient empathy, so understood, is an ideal center
each step toward which may make it more empirically real and socially
encompassing.
Empathy and Moral Deficits in
Psychopathy
Abigail A. Marsh
In the disaster he brings about he cannot estimate the affective
reactions of others which are the substance of the disaster . . . the
real psychopath seems to lack understanding of the nature and
quality of the hurt and sorrow he brings to others.
Hervey Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity
If there is a single psychiatric condition that is defined in terms of
morality, it is psychopathy. Modern conceptions of psychopathy
emerged from 19th-century observations that the primary affliction of a
subset of criminal and mentally ill populations was a breakdown of the
moral faculties. Benjamin Rush described individuals afflicted by
apparent perversion of the moral faculties (Rush, 1812), and James
Cowles Prichard created a diagnostic category, which he termed moral
insanity, that was marked by moral or emotional madness in the
absence of hallucinations or delusions (Prichard, 1837). The
contemporary definition of psychopathy reflects these origins,
incorporating both deficiencies in moral emotions like empathic concern
and guilt and persistent immoral behaviors like deceit, conning, theft,
and interpersonal violence (Hare, 1991). Although other psychological
conditions, such as borderline personality disorder or post-traumatic
stress disorder, are associated with increases in immoral behavior, there
is no other disorder for which immorality is such a central feature.
Because of this, psychopathy is an important phenomenon for (p.139)
better understanding the nature of human morality. In learning about
individuals in whom moral emotions and behavior are consistently
impaired (in the absence of other major cognitive impairments) we may
derive important information about the neurocognitive systems that
support morality.
Since the development of reliable scales for measuring psychopathy
(e.g., Hare, 1991; Forth, Kosson, & Hare,2003; Lilienfeld & Andrews,
1996), research on psychopathy has burgeoned, driven in part by the
practical importance of understanding individuals whose
disproportionately violent and criminal behavior is costly to society
(Rutter, 2012; Hare, 1993). Understanding the nature of moral deficits in
psychopathy is therefore both a pragmatically and a theoretically useful
endeavor. This chapter will review the accumulating empirical research
that supports the roots of specific moral deficits in psychopathy. In
particular, it will explore the evidence that moral deficits in psychopathy
emerge from fundamental deficiencies in the capacity for certain forms
of empathy and will consider the possible neural basis for these deficits.
These findings may illuminate the role of empathy in moral judgments
and behavior more broadly.

Psychopathy
The earliest criteria for assessing psychopathy were formulated by the
psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley, whose book The Mask of Sanity was first
published in 1941 and has since become a touchstone for psychopathy
researchers in the modern era (Cleckley, 1982). Cleckley noted that a
subset of patients in the mental institutions where he worked were set
apart by characteristic features. These features included an absence of
afflictions typical in institutionalized patients, such as delusions,
irrational behavior, suicidality, and nervousness or neuroses. These
items were included in his original 16 criteria for psychopathy, in
addition to items related both to moral emotions (such as a lack of
remorse or shame) and to immoral behavior (including untruthfulness
and inadequately motivated antisocial behavior). Of note, Cleckley also
included the failure to learn by experience as symptomatic of
psychopathy, as many of the psychopathic individuals he observed
persistently engaged in deviant behaviors, seemingly undeterred by the
prospect of negative consequences like future incarceration.
More recently, Hare and colleagues applied psychometric techniques to
create a reliable instrument for researchers to assess psychopathy in
institutionalized populations, called the Psychopathy Checklist (now in
its revised form, PCL-R) (Hare, 1991). The PCL-R is a 20-item scale with
a maximum score of 40 that was originally created and standardized in
male prison (p.140) populations rather than patients in mental
institutions (Hare,1991). The selection of items on the scale reflects this
fact. It features more items specifically assessing criminal behavior
juvenile delinquency, criminal versatility, revocation of conditional
releasein addition to items featured in Cleckleys criteria, for example,
lack of remorse and pathological lying. Absent from the PCL-R, however,
are the items that Cleckley included to distinguish psychopaths from
other mentally ill populations: the absence of nervousness, absence of
delusions or irrational thinking, and infrequent suicidality. The ubiquity
of the PCL-R and its variants in forensic psychiatry and related
disciplines has led to this instrument being described as the gold
standard for the measurement of psychopathysometimes to the
extent that the instrument is considered synonymous with the
psychopathy construct (Skeem & Cooke, 2010; Skeem, Polaschek,
Patrick, & Lilienfeld, 2011; Ermer, Kahn, Salovey, & Kiehl, 2012). That
said, drawbacks of this instrument include the requirement that file data
or other background information be used when scoring it (meaning that
it cannot easily be used in noninstitutionalized samples); its heavy
reliance on items assessing criminal behavior (Skeem & Cooke, 2010);
and the exclusion of items that assess fear or anxiety, which has led
some investigators to supplement the scale with anxiety measures or
clinical assessments of anxiety disorders (e.g., Koenigs, Kruepke, Zeier,
& Newman, 2012; Marsh et al., 2008).
A variety of self-report measures of psychopathy are also available,
which are generally reliably correlated with the PCL-R (Malterer,
Lilienfeld, Neumann, & Newman, 2010; Poythress et al., 2010) and
obviate the need for file data, permitting psychopathy to be assessed in
noninstitutionalized community samples. The use of self-report
measures in community samples is consistent with the idea that, like
most other psychological disorders (Markon, Chmielewski, & Miller,
2011), psychopathic traits are continuously distributed in the population
(rather than being taxonomic in structure) such that information about
psychopathy can usefully be drawn from both clinically diagnosed
samples and community samples (Edens, Marcus, Lilienfeld, &
Poythress, 2006; Guay, Ruscio, Knight, & Hare, 2007; Malterer,
Lilienfeld, Neumann, & Newman, 2010).
Views on the factor structure of psychopathy vary (Skeem, Polaschek,
Patrick, & Lilienfeld, 2011; Jones, Cauffman, Miller, & Mulvey, 2006),
but the classic division of psychopathic traits is a two-factor solution
incorporating socio-affective traits termed callous-unemotional traits
that include lack of guilt or remorse and shallow affect; and antisocial
and under-controlled behaviors, like irresponsibility, impulsivity, and
poor anger control. Antisocial behaviors observed in psychopathy may
also be observed in other deviant populations, but callous-unemotional
traits set psychopaths apart and are often referred to as the core
features of the disorder (Sylvers, Brennan, & (p.141) Lilienfeld, 2011).
Assessments of children typically focus only on these traits, and a
callous-emotional traits specifier has been proposed for children
diagnosed with Conduct Disorder using the forthcoming Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual V (DSM-V) (Frick & Moffitt, 2010). The two factors
that compose psychopathy are strongly positively related, such that
higher levels of callous-unemotional traits predispose an individual to
increased antisocial behaviors, particularly antisocial behavior that
serves an instrumental goal, such as bullying, sexual violence, or assault
during the course of a robbery (Blair, 2001; Woodworth & Porter,2002;
Kahn, Byrd, & Pardini, 2012; Viding, Frick, & Plomin, 2007; Dadds,
Fraser, Frost, & Hawes, 2005).

Moral Judgments in Psychopathy

Very early descriptions of psychopathy explained the condition as a
disorder of the moral faculties. Prichard, for example, described
psychopathy as a morbid perversion of the natural feelings, affections,
inclinations, temper, habits, moral dispositions, and natural impulses,
without any remarkable disorder or defect of the intellect or knowing or
reasoning faculties . . . (Prichard, 1837, p. 16). But accumulating
research on the neurocognitive basis of morality indicate that the
umbrella term morality encompasses many different phenomena and
that various types of moral judgments may be facilitated by distinct
neurocognitive processes (Sinnott-Armstrong & Wheatley, 2012). This
suggests that any single disorder or impairment is unlikely to affect all
forms of moral reasoning. The goal, therefore, is not simply to
determine whether psychopathy affects morality, but what forms of
moral judgment it affects, and via what mechanisms.
The earliest investigations of psychopaths moral judgments aimed to
identify qualitative differences in moral reasoning using Kohlbergs
method, in which respondents are presented with a complex moral
scenario and asked to justify the most appropriate course of action
(Kohlberg, 1981). Responses are scored as representing various stages of
moral reasoning, which Kohlberg believed emerged progressively during
development. These investigations met with mixed results, with some
yielding findings that psychopaths reason at a lower level than other
antisocial populations (Fodor, 1973; Jurkovic & Prentice, 1977) and
others finding no significant group differences (Lee & Prentice, 1988;
Trevethan & Walker, 1989).
More consistent findings have emerged from quantitative investigations
of the moral/conventional distinction in psychopathic adults and
children (Blair, 1995; Blair, Jones, Clark, & Smith, 1995; Fisher & Blair,
1998). In this task, respondents make a variety of judgments about both
moral transgressions, (p.142) which are defined as violations of others
rights or welfare and which include, for example, theft, violence, and
damaging property, and about conventional transgressions, which are
defined as deviations from social norms or rules and which include, for
example, talking out of turn (Blair, Jones, Clark, & Smith, 1995). Moral
and conventional transgressions are typically judged differently in two
respects: moral violations are generally judged to be more serious and
also to be less rule contingent (modifiable). In other words, compared to
conventional violations, a moral violation like hitting another person is
less likely to be judged morally acceptable, and judgments about it are
unlikely to change when respondents are informed that there are no
rules against the action in the setting where it occurred (Turiel, 1977;
Turiel, 1983). In addition, when asked why a moral violation is wrong,
respondents tend to refer to its effects on the welfare of the victim.
Populations found to successfully distinguish between moral and
conventional violations according to these criteria include non-
psychopathic criminals (Blair, 1995), children as young as three years of
age (Smetana & Braeges,1990), adults with autism (Zalla, Barlassina,
Buon, & Leboyer, 2011), and adults with Downs syndrome (Hippolyte,
Iglesias, Van der Linden, & Barisnikov, 2010). Evidence exists that the
distinction emerges across cultures as well. A study of Amish
adolescents found that these respondents distinguished between
conventional violations, like working on a Sunday, that would be
permissible if God had made no rule against it, as compared to moral
violations, like hitting someone, that would be impermissible even if
God had made no rule against it (Nucci, 1985). Together, these findings
suggest that the moral/conventional distinction arises in the absence of
advanced cognitive abilities, advanced Theory of Mind, or learning
accrued in a particular cultural context.
Despite this, psychopaths typically fail to distinguish between moral and
conventional transgressions. This has been observed anecdotally, for
example, during a prison interview, in which the presumed psychopath
Ted Bundy listed behaviors he knew to be wrong and jumbled together
moral and conventional violations in a way that seems strangely
arbitrary: It is wrong for me to jaywalk. It is wrong to rob a bank. It is
wrong to break into other peoples houses. It is wrong for me to drive
without a drivers license. It is wrong not to pay your parking tickets. It
is wrong not to vote in elections. It is wrong to intentionally embarrass
people (Michaud & Aynesworth, 2000, p. 119). Empirical evidence
exists as well. In two studies assessing the moral/conventional
distinction in psychopaths, Blair and colleagues assessed responses to
descriptions of transgressions adapted from the developmental
literature, including four moral transgressions (a child hitting another
child, a child pulling the hair of another child so that the victim cries, a
child smashing a piano, a child breaking the swing in the playground)
and four conventional transgressions (p.143) (a boy wearing a skirt,
two children talking in class, a child walking out of the classroom
without permission, a child who stops paying attention to the lesson and
turns his back on the teacher). In one study of 20 violent offenders, half
of whom were psychopaths, non-psychopathic offenders distinguished
between moral and conventional transgressions in terms of judgments
of seriousness, modifiability, and the types of rationale used to justify
their judgments whereas non-psychopathic offenders did not (Blair,
1995). This indicates that the moral/conventional test can distinguish
psychopathic offenders from non-psychopathic offenders. Interestingly,
psychopathic respondents tended to err in treating conventional
violations like moral violations in terms of seriousness and
modifiability. Psychopaths were also markedly less likely than non-
psychopaths to justify their judgments by referring to the victims
welfare. Over half (52.5%) of non-psychopaths justifications of moral
violations referred to victim welfare, whereas only 17.5% of psychopaths
justifications did (neither group used any welfare-based justifications in
response to conventional violations). Psychopaths were markedly more
likely to refer to conventions or rules (52.5%) than non-psychopaths
(35%) when responding to moral violations.
A follow-up study largely replicated this result, finding again that non-
psychopathic offenders distinguish between moral and conventional
violations in terms of seriousness, modifiability, and welfare-based
rationale, whereas psychopathic offenders distinguished between moral
and conventional violations only in their judgments of seriousness
(Blair, Jones, Clark, & Smith., 1995). And again, psychopaths were
markedly less likely than non-psychopaths to refer to victims welfare in
response to moral violations (3.75% vs. 27% of responses). The PCL-R
item that best predicted participants responses was a core moral
emotion item: lack of remorse or guilt.
A recent study (Aharoni, Sinnott-Armstrong, & Kiehl, 2012) did not find
a significant relationship between psychopathy and performance on a
moral/conventional distinction task that assessed modifiability
judgments (but not permissibility or justifications). However, significant
negative associations were found between task performance and both
the affective and antisocial facets of the PCL-R. Among the moral
violations that best distinguished offenders with high and low
psychopathy scores was the one item that described victim distress:
Annoyed by her sarcastic attitude, a man pulls a flight attendants hair,
causing her to scream.
The results of early studies on the moral/conventional distinction in
psychopaths, as well as the results of a study assessing children with
psychopathic traits (Fisher & Blair, 1998) are interpreted by Blair in
support of Violence Inhibition Mechanism (VIM) model and the
updated Integrated Emotion Systems (IES) model (Blair,2005; Blair,
1995). Under this model, distress (p.144) cues such as facial
expressions and vocalizations of fear or sadness are unconditioned
stimuli that developing children come to associate with moral violations,
thereby learning to avoid engaging in these behaviors. But the
neurocognitive deficits associated with psychopathy prevent
psychopaths from using information about a victims distress to
generate appropriate judgments about violations that result in victim
suffering, making these individuals difficult to socialize (Blair, 2005).
This model neatly explains psychopaths impairments in judging the
seriousness and modifiability of moral violations, as both types of
response require an appreciation of the distress the violation causes the
victim. (Is hitting someone permissible? No, because it would cause the
person distress. Would hitting be permissible if the rules said its all
right to hit? No, because hitting would still cause the person distress.)
The model does not specify whether psychopaths fail to learn the
seriousness of moral transgressions because they fail to recognize the
distress that results from moral violations, or whether they fail to care
that these violations results in distress, but either mechanism could
presumably yield the observed effects.
If the failure to respond to the distress of a victim is central to
psychopaths moral deficits, one would expect other moral reasoning
tasks that hinge upon responding to a victims distress to also find
impairments in psychopathy. The evidence for this is clear but limited,
in part because many moral judgment tasks do not systematically
manipulate victim distress or include task stimuli that highlight it. For
example, the commonly used trolley scenarios typically manipulate
whether the harmful act is intentional versus unintentional (accidental
or merely foreseen) (Young, Koenigs, Kruepke, & Newman, 2012; Marsh
et al., 2011a), or personal versus impersonal (requiring physical contact
with the victim or not) (Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, &
Cohen, 2001; Crockett, Clark, Hauser, & Robbins, 2010). Koenigs and
colleagues (Koenigs, Kruepke, Zeier, & Newman, 2012) investigated the
responses of psychopathic and non-psychopathic inmates to trolley
dilemmas featuring personal harm (e.g., pushing one person off a bridge
to stop a runaway train car from hitting five people) or impersonal harm
(e.g., pulling a switch to divert a runaway train car from hitting five
people). In either scenario, sacrificing one victim to save five others is
the utilitarian choice, but most respondents avoid this outcome if saving
the five requires personally harming the victim. Non-psychopathic
criminals generally followed this pattern, whereas psychopaths were
more likely to endorse personally harming the innocent victim in order
to save the others. It should be noted that this psychopathy sample was
limited to only respondents scoring 30 or greater on the PCL-R and that
group differences in response to personal harm were only obtained for
psychopaths with low anxiety scores (sometimes called primary
psychopaths), but not psychopaths with high anxiety scores.
(p.145) Koenigs and colleagues suggest that the higher cutoff score
explains why they observed group differences in judgments of personal
harm dilemmas whereas two previous studies assessing how
psychopathy affects judgments of similar scenarios did not. Cima and
colleagues (Cima, Tonnaer, & Hauser, 2010) used a cutoff score of 26,
and Glenn and colleagues (Glenn, Raine, & Schug, 2009; Glenn, Raine,
Schug, Young, & Hauser, 2009) assessed correlations in a community
sample with no cutoff score. This explanation runs counter, however, to
findings that psychopathy is more accurately described as a continuum
than a taxon (Edens, Marcus, Lilienfeld, & Poythress, 2006) and that, in
related neurocognitive tasks, similar findings can be observed across the
psychopathy spectrum in both incarcerated and community samples
(Glenn, Iyer, Graham, Koleva, & Haidt, 2009; Aharoni, Antonenko, &
Kiehl, 2011; Vanman, Mejia, Dawson, Schell, & Raine, 2003; Patrick,
Bradley, & Lang, 1993). An alternative explanation is that neither Cima
and colleagues nor Glenn and colleagues assessed anxiety in their
samples. Koenigs and colleagues only found more lenient moral
judgments regarding personal harm in low-anxiety psychopaths,
whereas high-anxiety psychopaths looked similar to controls. When all
the psychopaths were considered together in this study, psychopathy
was not significantly related to judgments of personal harm.
Together, these findings could be interpreted as refuting the idea that
moral judgments in psychopathy are impaired at all (Cima, Tonnaer, &
Hauser, 2010). Trolley dilemmas are a staple of neurocognitive
assessments of morality, and it seems counterintuitive that psychopaths,
whose moral behavior is so obviously aberrant, respond to these
dilemmas similarly to controls. But an alternate interpretation is that
perhaps psychopathy does not impair judgments of trolley dilemmas
because these dilemmas do not target the crux of psychopaths moral
deficits. If psychopathy predominantly impairs moral judgments that
require a representation of a victims distress, trolley scenarios are not
ideally suited for capturing this impairment. None of the scenarios
describe the victims responses to their fatethere are no mention of the
screams, tears, or anguished expressions that occur during an actual
fatal trolley crash. And although the personal harm scenarios are
considered more emotional in nature, it is not because victims
emotional reactions are amplified in these scenarios. Rather, these
scenarios aim to increase respondents presumed emotional reaction to
causing the death of an innocent victim. One might argue that in the
personal scenarios the victims distress would be more salient to the
respondent, but evidence for this mechanism is lacking. And because
other features also distinguish the two types of scenarios it would be
difficult to attribute any response patterns to this detail or to rule out
alternate mechanisms, such that responses to personal harm scenarios
represent a general distaste for violence or normative beliefs about the
appropriateness of violent behavior.
(p.146) In support of the idea that trolley scenarios are poorly suited
for capturing moral judgment deficits in psychopathy are the results of
studies that explicitly assess responses to victims outcomes and do find
that psychopathy predicts distinct judgment patterns. For example, two
recent studies have assessed the correspondence between psychopathic
traits and responses to the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ)
(Haidt & Graham, 2007; Aharoni, Antonenko, & Kiehl, 2011; Glenn, Iyer,
Graham, Koleva, & Haidt, 2009). This measure assesses the importance
of five systems, or foundations, in respondents moral judgments:
Harm/Care (concerns about violence, suffering, and compassion);
Fairness/Reciprocity (concerns about equality and justice);
Ingroup/Loyalty (concerns about loyalty and the treatment of ingroup
versus outgroup members); Authority/Respect (concerns about
obedience and hierarchical relations); and Purity/Sanctity (concerns
about moral disgust and purity). Using a large community sample,
Glenn and colleagues found that psychopathy predicted reduced
concerns about harm and fairness, but was relatively unrelated to other
moral domains such as authority and ingroup loyalty (Glenn, Iyer,
Graham, Koleva, & Haidt, 2009). Aharoni and colleagues found much
the same results in a sample of offenders, among whom concerns about
harm and fairness were also more strongly related to psychopathy scores
than were concerns about other moral domains (Aharoni, Antonenko, &
Kiehl, 2011). In both studies, the strongest predictor of total
psychopathy scores was judgments regarding harm/care. The harm/care
subscale of the MFQ includes items like, [It is relevant to consider]
whether or not someone suffered emotionally, and It can never be
right to kill a human being. Fairness judgments are assessed using
items like, [It is relevant to consider] whether or not someone acted
unfairly and I think its morally wrong that rich children inherit a lot
of money while poor children inherit nothing. Thus, both subscales
include items that allude to victim suffering, although the harm/care
subscale does so most explicitly.
A still more explicit focus on victim suffering was employed by Marsh
and Cardinale in a recent set of studies assessing the influence of
psychopathy on moral judgments about behaviors that evoke specific
emotions in the victim (Marsh & Cardinale, 2012; Marsh & Cardinale,
2014). The stimuli used in these studies were written statements that
vary in moral permissibility and would cause a target to experience one
of five basic emotions: anger (You are a disgrace), disgust (I never
wash my hands), fear (I could easily hurt you), happiness (You are
the nicest person I know), or sadness (I dont want to be friends
anymore). In both studies, respondents were drawn from community
samples and assessed using a self-report measure of psychopathy.
During the task, they read each statement and were asked whether it
would ever be morally acceptable to make that statement to another
person. In both studies, (p.147) the only judgments associated with
psychopathy scores were judgments about causing others fear. Although
violations resulting in anger and fear were on average viewed as equally
serious by the study participants, high psychopathy scorers judged
violations that cause fear to be significantly more permissible, but did
not differ in their judgments of the other violations. The results of these
studies provide the most targeted evidence to date that psychopathy is
most closely linked to impaired moral judgments when making those
judgments require reference to information about a victims distress,
particularly fear.
To summarize, the most consistent moral deficits in psychopathy
emerge in paradigms that that focus on the issue of victim suffering.
Trolley dilemmas, which neither describe nor manipulate the suffering
of victims, have not reliably been found to predict psychopathy scores.
By contrast, investigations of moral versus conventional violations,
which require considering victim distress in order to differentiate
between two types of transgressions, have been more reliably linked to
psychopathy. Similarly, investigations of various moral foundations have
found those that the subscales relevant to victim suffering are most
closely associated with psychopathy. And a novel task that assesses
moral judgments about evoking specific emotions in victims finds that
psychopathy most strongly affects judgments about causing a victim one
particular kind of emotional distress: fear.

Emotional Responding in Psychopathy

That psychopathy is particularly likely to impair moral reasoning in
response to victims distress, fear in particular, is significant. One of the
most durable findings in the psychopathy literature is that this disorder
also impairs the capacity to experience fear (Aniskiewicz, 1979;
Birbaumer et al., 2005; Herpertz et al., 2001; Lykken, 1957; Marsh et al.,
2011b; Rothemund et al., 2012; Flor, Birbaumer, Hermann, Ziegler, &
Patrick,2002). The parallel between the emotion that psychopaths fail to
respond to in victims and the emotion they fail to experience suggests a
possible empathic basis to moral reasoning deficits in psychopathy. That
is, the emotions that psychopaths fail to respond to in victims may
mirror the emotions they tend not to experience themselves.
Fear can be defined as the aversive state that accompanies the
anticipation of a punishment or other negative event and promotes
avoidance and escape behaviors (Stein & Jewett, 1986; LeDoux, 2000;
Panksepp, 1998). Psychopathy has been linked to deficient fear
responding from the earliest formal descriptions of the disorder. It will
be recalled that among Cleckleys defining criteria is the absence of
nervousness or psychoneurotic manifestations. Cleckley describes the
prototypical psychopath as incapable of anxiety (p. 340)
showing(p.148) immunity from . . . anxiety or worry (p. 339), and
being free from . . . nervousness (p. 339). His case studies largely
describe psychopaths as relaxed, affable, charming, and prone to engage
in a variety of risky and reckless behaviors with seemingly little thought
to the possibility of danger or punishment (for example, imprisonment).
These descriptions are consistent with current thinking that
psychopathy is a predictor of recidivism, perhaps because psychopaths
are not sufficiently deterred by the threat of future punishment
(Corrado, Vincent, Hart, & Cohen, 2004; Hare, 2006).
Empirical data aimed at assessing psychopaths responses to the threat
of punishment also supports the idea of impaired fear responding. The
first assessment of psychopaths behavioral responses to anticipated
negative outcomes was conducted by Lykken (Lykken, 1957), who
created a sort of mental maze that subjects were given 20 trials to learn.
At each choice point in the maze four choices were available, and one of
the four choices would result in an electrical shock applied to the
respondents finger. Relative to controls, psychopaths were significantly
slower to learn to avoid selecting the choices that resulted in shock. This
is consistent with the idea of an impaired fear response. The fear
learning system is conserved across species and has been well delineated
by researchers studying humans and nonhuman animals (LeDoux,
2003; Schoenbaum, Chiba, & Gallagher,1998). The system is described
as promoting the acquisition of an avoidance response for aversive
events and is dependent upon an intact amygdala (Bechara, Damasio,
Damasio, & Lee, 1999).
Also consistent with the notion of an impaired fear response are the
results of a paradigm in which psychopathic and non-psychopathic
participants were given the choice between an immediate shock and a
delayed shock (Hare, 1966). Most non-psychopathic participants
preferred the immediate shock rather than the dread that accompanies
waiting for a delayed shock, explaining their choice as resulting from a
desire to get it over with (p. 27). By contrast, psychopaths were
indifferent between the two options, selecting them in nearly the same
proportions throughout the task. The psychopaths claimed that, waiting
for the occurrence of delayed shock bothered them very little (p. 27).
Combined, these data are consistent with the idea that psychopathy
impairs the generation of a fear response under conditions of impending
threat and that this is a defect in emotional processes subserved by
primitive subcortical structures.
Psychophysiological data also support the notion that psychopaths
responses to an impending aversive outcome are muted. During
conditions of anticipated threat, psychopathy reduces skin-conductance
responses, an index of palmar sweat (Aniskiewicz, 1979; Birbaumer et
al., 2005; Herpertz et al., 2001; Lykken, 1957; Rothemund et al., 2012;
Flor, Birbaumer, Hermann, Ziegler, & Patrick et al., 2002); fear-
potentiated startle responses, an index of (p.149) the contraction of the
muscles around the eye following a startling noise (Herpertz et al., 2001;
Rothemund et al., 2012; Levenston, Patrick, Bradley, & Lang, 2000); and
distress-related facial expressions, indexed as the contraction of the
corrugator muscle underlying the brows (Herpertz et al.,2001;
Rothemund et al., 2012). When primary psychopaths are distinguished
from secondary psychopaths, these differences are particularly
pronounced for primary psychopaths who more strongly exhibit the core
callous-unemotional personality features of the disorder (Aniskiewicz,
1979; Lykken, 1957). These findings are consistent with the comments of
the psychopaths tested by Hare (Hare, 1966) as well as with anecdotal
reports from psychopaths who claim they do not not really understand
what others meant by fear (Hare, 1993, p. 53).
Empirical data also support that subjective experiences of fear are
reduced in psychopathy. In one recent paradigm (Marsh et al., 2011b),
healthy children and adolescents and those with psychopathic traits
underwent an autobiographical recall paradigm adapted from a task
developed by Scherer and Wallbott to measure subjective experiences of
emotion across cultures (Scherer & Wallbott, 1994). Respondents
recalled events in their own lives during which they had felt anger,
disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness. They then reported on how they
felt physiologically during these experiences. Specific items were
selected to correspond to changes linked to activation of the sympathetic
(fight or flight) and parasympathetic nervous system. Items
composing the index of sympathetic activation included changes in
breathing, heart rate, and muscle tension. When reports of changes in
sympathetic activity were analyzed, a significant group by emotion
interaction was found such that the psychopathic adolescents reported
experiencing less sympathetic activation during frightening experiences
than did healthy adolescents, whereas no group differences were
observed for other emotions. These data omitted the responses of two
psychopathic adolescents who claimed never to have felt afraid, and so
they could not provide a relevant recent event. No healthy adolescents
reported never having been afraid. At the end of the task, participants
were asked how often and how strongly they experienced the various
emotions in daily life and again, the groups differed only in their
responses to fear, which psychopathic adolescents claimed to feel less
often and less strongly than healthy adolescents.
It should be noted that psychopaths do not appear to be generally
without emotion. For example, anger appears to be intact and perhaps
enhanced in psychopaths. Anger is the high arousal state that follows
frustration or perceived threat and, behaviorally, is closely linked to
aggression against the source of frustration or threat (Blair, 2012). Two
recent studies found that psychopathy is associated with intact or
heightened physiological and subjective anger responses. Lobbestael and
colleagues (Lobbestael, Arntz, Cima, (p.150) & Chakhssi,2009) found
that total psychopathy scores, as well as callous-unemotional traits
scores, among individuals with antisocial personality disorder were
unrelated to physiological changes during an anger induction task. And
Hicks and Patrick (Hicks & Patrick, 2006) evaluated angry responding
using a variety of self-report scales and found elevated anger responding
in psychopathy, an effect that was primarily accounted for by antisocial
behavior factor scores. Positive excitement is another emotional state
that appears to be intact in psychopathy. This state is distinct from
happiness, which is associated with goal attainment, and is the state that
accompanies the anticipation of a reward (i.e., an appetitive outcome)
and that promotes acquisition or achievement of the reward (Berridge,
Robinson, & Aldridge, 2009). Although comparably little data exist that
explicitly assess positive excitement in psychopathy, what data do exist
suggest that psychopathy either minimally affects the motivational
salience of rewarding stimuli (Blair et al., 2004) or may even increase it
(Bjork, Chen, & Hommer,2012; Scerbo et al., 1990). So, for example,
Bjork and colleagues (Bjork, Chen, & Hommer, 2012) found that
psychopathy predicted faster reaction times when responses were
rewarded, but not when they were unrewarded. Little direct empirical
evidence exists regarding psychopathy and experiences of disgust or
happiness; of all other emotions sadness may be the next-most likely to
be significantly impaired (Marsh & Blair,2008; Dawel, OKearney,
McKone, & Palermo, 2012), although some direct evaluations of sadness
in psychopathy find no significant effects (Marsh et al., 2011b).
Specific impairments in subjective fear are related to a final interesting
fear-related finding in psychopathy, which is that psychopathy also
impairs the ability to recognize when others are experiencing fear. A
number of studies have assessed the degree to which psychopathy
affects the recognition of various emotions from the face, body, and
voice and have consistently shown that the form of emotion recognition
most affected by psychopathy is fear recognition (Marsh & Blair, 2008;
Dawel, OKearney, McKone, & Palermo, 2012). This effect appears to be
unrelated to the age or sex of respondents (Marsh & Blair, 2008) and is
more strongly related to the callous-unemotional factor of psychopathy
than to the antisocial behavior factor (Dawel, OKearney, McKone, &
Palermo, 2012). Psychopathy also affects the ability to determine which
behaviors will elicit fear in another person (Marsh & Cardinale, 2012). In
the moral judgment task described earlier, psychopathy not only affected
respondents moral judgments about causing others fear, it reduced
their ability to identify which behaviors would cause others fear. These
two judgments were also correlated, such that respondents who less
accurately identified statements like, I could easily hurt you as
frightening also judged these statements as more morally permissible.
(p.151) To summarize, the evidence is fairly strong that psychopaths do
not feel fear as strongly as non-psychopaths and that this deficit does
not extend across other emotions. In some psychopaths the experience
of fear may be essentially absent (such as, perhaps, the psychopath
quoted by Hare and the two youths assessed by Marsh and colleagues)
but, in keeping with the idea that psychopathy is a continuum rather
than a taxon, fear is likely muted to varying degrees rather than absent
in most individuals with psychopathic traits. This pattern parallels the
findings for emotion recognition in psychopathy; whereas psychopathy
is associated with impaired recognition of fearful emotional expressions,
recognition of other expressions appears relatively unaffected.

Empathy and Moral Judgments in Psychopathy

Returning to the consideration of moral deficits in psychopathy, the fact
that psychopathy impairs the recognition of others fearfor example,
fearful facial expressionsmay be particularly important to consider
because responses to expressions like these have been strongly linked to
empathic concern, defined as a concerned or sympathetic response to
anothers distress (de Waal, 2008). It has been suggested that the ability
to recognize anothers distress is critical for the experience of empathic
concern (Nichols, 2001). This is compatible with data that fearful
emotional facial expressions elicit empathic concern and the desire to
help from people who perceive them, even subliminally (Marsh &
Ambady, 2007). Data on emotion recognition in psychopaths suggest
that this fundamental empathy mechanism is impaired in psychopaths.
What is this basis of this mechanism? There is not yet a consensus on
how emotional facial expressions are recognized, but clearly the parallels
between psychopathic deficits in emotion recognition and emotional
experience are hard to miss. The one emotion that psychopaths clearly
seem not to feel stronglyfearis the emotion that they have the most
difficulty recognizing in others. That the experience and recognition of
emotions are linked has previously been observed across a number of
emotions, including fear (Buchanan, Bibas, & Adolphs, 2010). This
suggests that, in response to others fear, people typically experience a
low-level form of empathy sometimes termedemotional contagion,
which is the ability to be affected by and share the emotional state of
another (de Waal,2009). It has been suggested that we exploit this low
level emotional contagion in order to recognize emotions expressed by
other people (Goldman & Sripada, 2005). Impaired empathic responding
to others fear may be the source of psychopaths fear recognition
deficits and, by extension, their deficits in empathic concern. This
empathic breakdown appears to render others expressions of fear
literally meaningless in individuals with psychopathic traits.
(p.152) Here a potential link between empathic deficits and moral
judgments in psychopathy also emerges. It will be recalled that deficits
in moral judgment most reliably occur in psychopathy when the task
highlights or manipulates the distress of victims. And, when various
forms of victim distress are compared, the strongest moral judgment
deficits are observed for fear (Marsh & Cardinale, 2012). Perhaps
psychopaths moral responses to victims fear are impaired the same way
their responses to fear expressed in the face or voice are impaired: their
own muted capacity for fear leaves them unable to recognize or
understand the victims fear and thereby formulate the appropriate
concerned reaction to it. So, for example, in studies assessing the
moral/conventional distinction, the distress of potential victims,
whether explicitly stated (e.g., . . . and the victim cries) or requiring
inference on the respondents part (How would a victim react to being
hit or pushed off a swing?) are presumed to drive the average
respondents judgment that the actions are not acceptable because they
cause distress. This is also the reason the actions are viewed as
impermissible and not dependent on social rules. Psychopathic
respondents presumably fail to generate any empathic response to fear-
relevant distress cues in these scenarios, and are thus left to engage in a
qualitatively distinct process in order to arrive at a judgment. For
example, they may recruit semantic information about societal rules to
answer the question. Presumably this occurs in response to both moral
and conventional violations, which is why psychopaths judgments tend
not to distinguish between these types of violations.
That psychopaths resort to moral judgment strategies like the
recruitment of semantic knowledge about rules is supported by recent
neuroimaging evidence. It will be recalled that Marsh and Cardinale
(Marsh & Cardinale,2014) assessed moral judgments to emotionally
evocative statements during a functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) brain scan. During this task, moral judgments about statements
that evoke anger, disgust, happiness, or sadness in the listener did not
vary across groups. By contrast, high psychopathy scorers judged
statements that would elicit fear (which are primarily threats) as more
morally permissible than did low psychopathy scorers, a pattern that was
matched by a significant difference in amygdala activation across groups.
That low psychopathy scorers recruited the amygdala preferentially
when judging frightening statements (but not other negative
statements) supports the possibility of an empathic response to the
stimuli during the task. High psychopathy scorers did not exhibit any
increase in amygdala activation for these judgments. Instead, across
judgments of all negative statements, high psychopathy scorers showed
relatively increased activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a
region of the brain that is involved in facilitating abstract reasoning
(Glenn, Raine, Schug, Young, & Hauser, 2009). This finding parallels
those of a number of prior studies of psychopathy, in (p.153) which
activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is found to be elevated in
respondents with higher psychopathy scores during morally relevant
decisions, for example, trolley car dilemmas (Glenn, Raine, Schug,
Young, & Hauser, 2009) and the prisoners dilemma (Rilling et al.,
2007). This supports the idea that psychopathic traits increase reliance
on abstract reasoning about rules instead of the emotional input that
individuals without psychopathic traits preferentially use in order to
arrive at moral judgments (Glenn, Raine, Young, & Hauser, 2009).
The types of moral reasoning paradigms in which behavioral differences
emerge as a function of psychopathy, then, may be those for which
abstract rule-based reasoning or other non-empathic strategies do not
yield sufficient answers. When empathic concern is the default response
in controls and a critical contributor to their moral judgments,
psychopaths moral judgments may be most likely to differ from
controls. But when controls primarily engage in abstract reasoning about
rules, weighing utilitarian gains across outcomes, or deploying
emotional systems that are not impaired in psychopathy, such as anger
(Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999), the task is less likely to identify
group differences. This explanation can account for recent findings, for
example, that psychopaths judgments of accidental harm to a victim are
more lenient than non-psychopaths judgments (Young, Koenigs,
Kruepke, & Newman, 2012). This suggests that psychopaths relied overly
much upon the semantic information that people are not held
responsible for true accidents that harm othersfor example, when a
pedestrian steps in front of a car and leaves the driver insufficient time
to stop being hitting the pedestrian. People who are not psychopathic
also know this rule, but in considering the action they would also be
expected to experience empathic concern when imagining hitting
someone with their car and judge this action more severely as a result.
Much remains unknown about moral reasoning in psychopathy.
Although the evidence is substantial that moral judgments that rely on
recognizing and responding to fear and similar forms of distress are
impaired in psychopathy, what specific other forms of distress may be
affected is less clear. Far less is known about the neurocognitive basis of
sadness relative to fear, and how the experience or recognition of
sadness is affected by psychopathy is relatively understudied. Abundant
research has recently been conducted assessing empathic responses to
pain (Lamm, Decety, & Singer, 2011), but how psychopathy might affect
responses to the suffering that accompanies pain is also relatively poorly
understood. Finally, how the various moral emotions affected by
psychopathyincluding empathic concern, remorse, and guiltmay be
interrelated, and how they may affect moral reasoning in psychopathy, is
an important topic for future study.

(p.154) Conclusions
The case of psychopathy presents a strong case that some forms of
moral reasoning rely on intact empathic responses to victims distress,
particularly fear, and therefore are reliant on basic emotional processes.
There are many compelling reasons to focus on the rational basis of
moral judgments (Cima, Tonnaer, & Hauser,2010), but interpreting
psychopaths moral reasoning deficits as primarily rooted in rationality
presents several difficulties. For one, as Nichols has argued (Nichols,
2002a), it is difficult to identify a rational defect that is present in
psychopaths but that is absent in populations (e.g., very young children,
autistic adults) that reliably draw the moral/conventional distinction.
For another, the evidence seems to suggest that psychopathic deficits in
moral judgments are more likely to emerge the more the moral
reasoning task requires the consideration of victims distress,
particularly fear. This phenomenon can be observed both across tasks
and within tasks (e.g., Aharoni. Sinnott-Armstrong, & Kiehl, 2012; Marsh
& Cardinale, 2012). Deficits in responding to others fear in moral
judgment tasks closely parallels findings that the fear system appears to
be generally defective across a variety of neurocognitive paradigms in
psychopaths. Finally, recent neuroimaging research suggests that
psychopaths deficits in both fear processing and moral reasoning are
linked to dysfunction in evolutionarily ancient subcortical structures
like the amygdala, the function of which is primarily affective. This
suggests that the empathic deficits that lead to moral reasoning deficits
in psychopathy emerge from basic affective processes.
These points are among the accumulating evidence that supports the
presence of circumscribed deficits in moral reasoning in psychopathy. In
better understanding the nature of these deficits, including their
neurodevelopmental origins, we may gain an improved understanding
not only of the nature of psychopathy, but of the nature of human
morality.
Are Empathy and Morality Linked?
Insights from Moral Psychology, Social and Decision Neuroscience, and
Philosophy
Giuseppe Ugazio
Jasminka Majdandi
Claus Lamm
Introduction
Empathy is commonly viewed as a necessary condition for moral
behavior in most of the treaties proposed in the history of moral
philosophy (Aristotle/Roger, 2000; Hume, 1777/1960; Smith, 1853),
which has resulted in the widespread belief that empathy and morality
are intimately related. Defining the relationship between empathy and
morality, however, has proven to be difficult for two main reasons. First,
empathy has been defined in many different ways, which makes it hard
to differentiate it from other socio-emotional states, such as compassion
or sympathy (e.g., Batson, 2009b, this volume). Second, evidence on the
causal role of empathy, and of emotions in general, in morality is mixed.
Some scholars indeed maintain that emotions play no role in morality
(Hauser, 2006), while others claim that emotions play a dominant role
in moral judgments (Prinz,2004). Addressing these two issues will allow
us to gain a clearer view of the relationship between empathy and
morality.
(p.156) In this chapter, we will therefore summarize the most
important philosophical approaches to defining morality. We will then
propose a definition of empathy that differentiates it from the emotional
states with which it is often confused. Having laid a theoretical
foundation in the first two sections, in the third section we will discuss,
in light of the existing literature, what role emotions, and more
specifically empathy, most likely play in morality. We will explain that
empathy plays a very important role in morality in two respects. First,
empathy allows humans to understand how others are emotionally
affected by a given action, which can directly inform moral decisions and
actions. In addition, by means of the link between empathy and
compassion (or sympathy), empathy can motivate people to behave in
accordance with moral principlessuch as maximizing the wellbeing of
as many people as possible (Bentham, 1789/1996) or not inflicting harm
or using a person as a means to an end (Kant, 1785/1965). However, we
will argue that, although empathy is an important source of information,
the knowledge acquired via empathy does not directly translate into
moral decisions as, under some circumstances, the morally appropriate
option may be different from the option following from ones empathic
response. For instance, previous results have shown that empathic
responses can reduce the frequency of utilitarian judgments, such as
when one decides to refrain from sacrificing the life of an innocent
person with whom one strongly empathizes in order to save a larger
number of innocent people (Crockett, Clark, Hauser, & Robbins, 2010;
Gleichgerrcht & Young, 2013; Majdandi et al., 2012). This might be
viewed as at odds with the moral judgment prescribed by the utilitarian
school (see Figure 1 below for a schematic illustration of this point).
Furthermore, empathic responses can lead people to express
contradictory judgments depending on whether their decisions regard
ingroup or outgroup members (Cikara, Farnsworth, Harris, & Fiske,
2010). Third, the knowledge acquired through empathy may sometimes
be used to motivate immoral behavior, such as in the case of torture.

1 . What Is Morality?
If we want to find out whether and, if so, how empathy informs
morality, we first need to define morality. The roots of the English
noun morality evolved from the Latin noun morlia and lie in the
Latin mores, which can be literally translated into habits, customs,
or traditions. These are also the nouns that are closest in meaning to
the Ancient Greek thos from which the English ethics originated.
Although these words can be considered synonyms, we should note that
over the centuries ethics has been used to denote the study of the
principles which should be used to establish the (p.157) appropriate
habits for a given community, social group, or professional activity;
morality, instead, has been mostly used in its adjective form, that is, as
a synonym of ethical, denoting the habits that are in accordance with
the principles identified by ethics. In the context of the present chapter,
we will refer to morality as the expression of judgments classifying
behaviors into good/right and bad/wrong ones. Two perspectives can be
taken when studying morality: (a) a normative perspective that
establishes the principles that should be used to decide which behaviors
are good and which are bad and (b) a descriptive point of view that
studies how we decide whether a given behavior is good or bad.
Normative moral theories thus inform us about how we ought to behave
and how we ought to decide which behaviors are right or wrong. More
specifically, normative ethics provides us with the means to discriminate
between right and wrong. However, singling out which behaviors are
right and wrong is a task of practical ethics, a branch of ethics that we
will not discuss in this chapter. From the numerous theories proposed in
the normative moral philosophical literature, two have particular
relevance in the contemporary moral debate: consequentialism and
deontology (Tobler, Kalis, & Kalenscher, 2008). These theories differ
mainly in what they focus on in order to identify the normative
principles. While the principles proposed by consequentialism focus on
the foreseeable consequences of behaviors, deontological principles
specify the requirements that the behaviors need to meet.
More specifically, consequentialism holds that the outcomes
(consequences) of our actions ought to be as good as possible (Scheffler,
1988; Singer, 1974). Consequentialist theories are further distinguished
between act consequentialism and rule consequentialism. According to
the former, the outcome of individual actions ought to be as good as
possible. On the other hand, given that the consequences of individual
actions are sometimes difficult to predict, the latter holds that the
consequences of established action-guiding rules ought to be as good as
possible. Actions are thus evaluated with respect to these rules (see also
Heinzelmann, Ugazio, & Tobler,2012). For example, one of the most
relevant consequentialist theories is utilitarianism: One ought to do
what maximizes the wellbeing of the greatest number of people (or
minimizes their unhappiness).
Deontological theories assign a special role to duties (deontology
refers to the study or science of duty, from the Ancient Greek deon =
duty). Duties are actions that follow one or more principled rules. From
this perspective, the rightness or wrongness of an action is not so much
determined by the goodness or badness of its consequences, but rather
by whether the action itself fulfills the established requirements. For
instance, one of the most popular requirements can be found in Kants
(1785/1965) moral theory, in which the (p.158) author states that one
may never treat other human beings as a means to an end, but only as
an end in themselves (p. 30).
In contrast to normative moral theories, descriptive moral theories seek
to elucidate how a person decides whether a given behavior is right or
wrong. Following David Humes Treatise on Human Nature
(1739/1978), which is one of the most complete attempts to provide a
scientific description of moral judgments, moral philosophers have
diverged into two groups: those who believe that morality is driven
solely by rational considerations (Clarke, 1738; Cudworth, 1996; Kant,
1785/1993) and those who propose that morality is of an emotional
nature (Hume, 1739/1978; Hutcheson, 2002; Prinz, 2004; Cooper, 1999).
Briefly, those who consider morality to be of an emotional nature
suggest that, in order to evaluate the moral appropriateness of an event,
one must base ones judgment on the gut feeling provoked by the
event. If the gut feeling is a pleasant one, then the event is morally
appropriate, but if the gut feeling is unpleasant the event is morally
inappropriate (Hume, 1739/1978). In other words, by paying attention to
ones own feelings, a person can infer whether something is morally
appropriate. In contrast, those who believe that morality is solely a
matter of reasoning claim that evaluating the appropriateness of an
event requires a deliberative reasoning process based on a moral
principle that is purely based on practical reason, in other words, a
principle that rational agents would all agree on (e.g., never treat
humans as means to an end): If an event violates such a principle, it is
morally inappropriate; if an event is in accordance with such a principle,
it is morally appropriateirrespective of the emotions accompanying the
decision (Kant, 1785/1993).
It has recently become problematic to maintain that morality is solely of
either an emotional or a cognitive nature. On the one hand, while we
normally think of moral judgments as beliefs, they are characteristically
motivating, and as Hume notes, judgments of facts alone do not have
the power to move us (Schwartz, 2005, pp. 12). In other words, if
morality were only of a cognitive nature, then moral judgments alone
would lack the motivational aspect that induces a person to act
according to his/her judgments. Prinz (2011a) proposed an interesting
thought example that captures such motivational aspects: Consider the
following two rules that pupils are frequently taught at school: (a) a
conventional rule stating that pupils should raise their hand and wait for
the teacher to call on them before speaking and (b) a moral rule stating
that pupils should not harm other pupils. If a schoolteacher told the
pupils that they could speak whenever they wanted to and no longer
needed to raise their hand and wait to be called on, most of them would
conform to the new norm, speaking whenever they wanted to. However,
if a teacher told the pupils that they could hurt each other, very few of
them would actually do so as moral norms have (p.159) intrinsic
motivational power and do not need an external element (such as an
authority) to be obeyed. Furthermore, a purely rational view of morality
is inconsistent with the recent body of evidence that moral judgments
typically involve strong immediate subjective feelings (Greene,
Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001; Haidt, 2001; Moll, De
Oliveira-Souza, & Zahn, 2008; Ugazio, Lamm, & Singer,2012).
On the other hand, considering morality to be solely of an emotional
nature would result in denying the ubiquitous emergence and
consolidation of moral knowledge (i.e., sets of moral principles) in
human societies (Schwartz, 2005). Indeed, in order for such moral
regulations to emerge, it is necessary that a group of people reach an
agreement on the moral appropriateness of a given behavior based on
grounds that exceed the level of individual feelings. Founding moral
criteria on formal rules of logic seems to constitute a more widely
accepted common ground than basing them on more erratic, individual
emotions. Due to the conclusion that morality requires both emotional
and rational components, scholars who argued that emotion and
rationality mutually exclude each other in moral judgments ran into the
logical impossibility of maintaining at the same time that moral
knowledge exists and that morality is of a solely emotional nature (R.
Campbell, 2005).
Thus, as R. Campbell (2005) proposes, morality is best considered to
have elements of both reason (or belief) and emotion (and desire)that
is, it can be considered to be a besire (Altham, 1986). From this
perspective, then, moral judgments are considered to be a combination
of beliefs, emotions, and motivations, but sometimes they can also be
solely rational or solely emotional responses to events. In sum,
according to this moral descriptive view, the emotional component of
morality is mainly associated with its motivational aspect, that is, the
force that morality has to motivate a person to act in a certain way, while
the rational component is linked to the capacity of acquiring moral
knowledge, that is, a set of norms that guide our moral judgments (R.
Campbell, 2005).
The dichotomy of philosophical views on morality, that is, whether it is
of an emotional or rational nature, has also been reflected in the mixed
results of scientific attempts to clarify the nature of morality. On the one
hand, some scholars claim that, given the obtained data, morality is
motivated by emotions: Schnall and colleagues found that induced
disgust leads people to express more severe judgments of condemnation
toward certain moral violations (such as incest) than people in a neutral
emotional state (Schnall, Haidt, & Clore, 2008); a similar disgust-
induction effect was found by Wheatley and Haidt (2005) on the same
types of moral scenarios. On the other hand, otherscholars who mostly
analyzed the motivations for the moral considerations expressed by
people claimed the opposite, that is, that morality is of a (p.160) purely
rational nature (Kohlberg, 1976; Piaget, 1932; Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, &
Thoma, 1999). As we have argued in previous work (Ugazio, Lamm, &
Singer, 2012), it is likely that the origins of the many contradictory
findings lie in the heterogeneity of experimental procedures that have
been adopted. At present, the views that considered morality to be solely
driven by emotional or rational forces are losing strength, as most
scholars now agree that both reason and emotions play an important
role in morality (Cushman, Young, & Greene, 2010; Moll, Zahn, de
Oliveria-Souza, Krueger, & Grafman, 2005; Moll, De Oliveira-Souza, &
Zahn 2008; Ugazio, Lamm, & Singer, 2012). In line with R. Campbells
(2005) dual view of morality, the evidence proposed by moral
psychologists seems to support the theoretical view that moral
judgments result, depending on the circumstances, from a combination
of rational deliberations and emotional responses to an event.
In light of the literature discussed so far, we propose that emotions may
play a crucial role in morality. Being a social emotion, therefore,
empathy may serve as a crucial source of information for a person to
judge which behaviors are morally right or wrong (Bartels, 2008; Haidt,
2001; Nichols, 2002b; Ugazio, Lamm, & Singer,2012). Through this role,
empathy can then trigger associated emotional states, which have the
potential to move people to act in accordance with morally prescribed
behaviors. Since it is important to distinguish between empathy and
other constructs that are also associated with emotional responses (such
as emotional contagion, sympathy, or compassion), the next section
focuses on defining empathy and related terms.

2 . What Is Empathy?
The Anglo-Saxon linguistic roots of the word empathy lie in the
Ancient Greek empatheia (passion), which is composed of en (in) and
pathos (feeling). The term was originally coined by the German
philosopher Theodor Lipps, who used the term Einfhlung (of which the
English word empathy seems to be a direct translation) to describe the
process of understanding works of art. At a basic phenomenological
level, empathy denotes an affective response to the directly perceived,
imagined, or inferred emotional state of another being. To our own
understanding, empathy requires the affective sharing or resonating of
an observer with another persons (the target) affect in an isomorphic
manner. In addition, the observer has to be aware at any point in time
that the source of his or her feelings is the target. This stresses the
central importance of the capacity for self/other distinction, which is the
ability to distinguish between mental and bodily representations related
to the self and to the other (de Vignemont & Singer, 2006; Decety &
Lamm, 2006; Singer & Lamm, 2009). (p.161) Empathy can therefore be
described as a mechanism enabling a (usually impartial) copy (feeling
with) of the targets emotional state by the observer, with full
awareness of which parts are copied and which parts originate in the
observer him- or herself.
This definition, which stresses the role of empathy in gaining
information about the internal affective representations of others,
deviates from the predominant folk psychological definition, namely,
that empathy is an other-oriented or even moral social emotion. In
order to avoid confusion with such definitions, some conceptual
clarifications are needed (see also Batson, 2009b). At least five key
concepts are related to empathy, ranging from motor mimicry to
prosocial or altruistic behavior.
Motor mimicry describes our tendency to automatically synchronize our
movements with those of another person. For instance, considerable
evidence suggests that perceiving a targets affective facial expressions
activates the corresponding facial muscles in the observer (for a review,
see Dimberg & Oehman, 1996), and the strength of such mimicry
responses correlates with self-report questionnaire measures of
empathic skills (Sonnby-Borgstrom, 2002). Notably, though, this
correlation is rather weak, indicating that such bottom-up resonance
mechanisms are only one aspect of empathy. In addition, recent
accounts contest the automaticity of human mimicry and propose that it
acts as a social signal (Hess & Fischer, 2013). We propose that motor
mimicry might subserve both resonant and signal functions and support
a virtuous circle sustaining smooth social interactions (Heyes,
forthcoming).
Emotional contagion is another phenomenon that is strongly relevant to
yet clearly distinct from empathy (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994).
It denotes the tendency to catch other peoples emotions and has also
been labeled primitive empathy (Hatfield, Rapson, & Le, 2008) or
affective empathy (de Waal, 2008). Notably, a few days after birth,
human newborns already start crying in response to the distress calls of
other babies. To turn this contagious response into a full-blown
empathic response requires the development of a sense of self, however,
since experiencing empathy requires the awareness that the source of
the feeling state is the other, not the self. This sense emerges around the
age of about 12 months (Hoffman, 2000). Taken together, motor
mimicry and emotional contagion may in many instances be important
antecedents of empathy, but in general should neither be regarded as
necessary nor as sufficient processes for the experience of empathy.
With respect to the consequences of vicarious emotional responses,
empathy as defined here needs to be separated from sympathy, empathic
concern, and compassion. While all four terms include affective changes
in an observer in response to the affective state of another person, only
the experience of (p.162) empathy entails vicarious responses that are
not modified by the observer (in the sense of the copied state or
feeling with referred to above). In contrast, sympathy, empathic
concern, and compassion carry additional feeling for processes
attributed to the observer. For example, in the case of empathy,
observing the sadness of another person is associated with a partial
feeling of sadness in the observer. Sympathy, empathic concern, and
compassion, however, are characterized by additional feelings, such as
concern about the targets welfare or the wish to alleviate his or her
suffering. These processes are the outcome of the interaction between
observer and target, but go beyond what the target is actually feeling.
The main distinction between empathy and phenomena like sympathy,
empathic concern, and compassion is therefore whether the observers
emotions are inherently other-oriented (feeling for; compassion,
sympathy, empathic concern) or whether they reflect affective sharing in
the sense of feeling with (empathy) the other person.
Finally, many accounts of empathy, broadly defined (Batson, 1991; de
Waal, 2008), relate its occurrence to prosocial, other-oriented
motivations (i.e., a motivation to increase the other persons wellbeing
or welfare or to forego selfish, self-related benefits for the benefit of
others). This is not necessarily the case when empathy is defined as
feeling with another person. Empathy as understood this way simply
enables us to feel as accurately as possible what others are feeling,
without any sort of valuation attached to these feelings. Whether this
then has prosocial, antisocial, or neutral consequences is the result of
other variables, including other social emotions (such as envy or guilt),
as well as acquired behavioral tendencies, moral values, or the personal
relationship between observer and target (which if competitive can even
result in counter-empathy; e.g., Lanzetta & Englis,1989; Yamada, Lamm,
& Decety, 2011). Notably, while consistent evidence for the link between
feeling for (empathic concern, compassion) and prosocial behavior
exists (e.g., Batson, 1991; Eisenberg, 2000b; Eisenberg et al., 1989a), a
clear-cut empirical demonstration of a link between empathy as feeling
with and prosocial or moral decision-making is still missing.
In terms of the neural foundations, which have received increased
attention in the last few years, the definition of empathy as a shared
feeling state has received widespread support. For example, two recent
meta-analyses of functional neuroimaging studies unequivocally
demonstrated that witnessing others suffering engages a neural network
indicating that the observer is in an emotional state him- or herself
(Fan, Duncan, de Greck, Northoff,2011; Lamm, Decety, & Singer et al.,
2011). This network includes the anterior insular cortex and the medial
cingulate cortex (MCC), two brain areas that constitute an intrinsically
linked network involved in emotional(p.163) awareness and the
homeostatic regulation of physiological bodily responses associated with
emotional responses (Lamm & Singer, 2010). Of note for the present
discussion, by means of its connections to output centers of the brain,
the MCC in particular is able to provide a rather direct link between
emotional and behavioral responses, which enables the organism to
maintain homeostasis.
In addition, it is important to point out the distinction between self- and
other-related emotional responses resulting from the observation of
distress in others (e.g., Batson, Fultz, & Schoenrade, 1997; Lamm,
Batson, & Decety, 2007). Witnessing negative emotions in others can
result in empathic concern, which is an other-related vicarious response.
This might in turn increase altruistic motivation toward the person
empathized with and thus motivate prosocial behavior (Batson, Early, &
Salvarini, 1997). In contrast, harm to others might also evoke personal
distress, which is a self- rather than other-focused vicarious emotion.
Rather than motivating a prosocial act, personal distress might increase
ones tendency to escape the distressful situation. Alternatively, if a
prosocial act is performed, it might result from essentially selfish
motives, that is, be an attempt to reduce ones own distress by
eliminating the source of the distress (i.e., the other persons suffering;
e.g., Cialdini et al.,1987; Maner et al., 2002). Hence, decisions to help
others that are motivated by vicarious responding can stem from other-
related or from self-related motives. Whether such decisions can be
considered moral decisions strongly depends on the relevance one
assigns to the motives for the decision: On the one hand, if motives are
not among the primary determinants of whether a decision is moral or
not (e.g., if we only care about the consequences of a decision), then
decisions motivated by self-related motives can also be considered
moral. However, if motives or intentions play a central role in
determining whether a decision is moral or not (e.g., as for Kant,
1785/1965), then selfish motives can never be moral motives. Hence,
decisions motivated by self-related motives would not be considered
moral. From Kants perspective, decisions resulting from selfish motives
should not be considered moral as the given motives cannot be
universalized and ultimately come to constitute a moral principle (Kant,
1785/1965). For example, imagine a bystander who decides to risk his
life to save a drowning person because he could not bear the distress of
witnessing the death of a person (or, due to a more trivial selfish motive,
such as because the drowning person owed him a large sum of money).
From the two perspectives discussed previously, if we only care about
consequences, this decision has to be considered a moral decision; from
the second point of view, however, this decision can be considered a
good one, but not a moral one.

(p.164) 3 . Morality and Empathy

In the previous two sections, we discussed our definitions of morality
and empathy. Within this theoretical framework, we will now analyze
the relationship between empathy and morality. Since, in the process of
defining morality, we differentiated between the normative and
descriptive parts of morality, it is necessary to elaborate on the
relationship between empathy and each of these aspects of morality.
However, we will mainly focus on the relationship between descriptive
morality and empathy rather than on the relationship between
normative morality and empathy.
From a normative point of view, scholars might debate on issues such
as: Should an individuals empathic capacities be cultivated and
promoted? Should empathy be included among the elements used to
establish the principles that govern our decisions? For instance, Kant
(1785/1965) proposed that emotions should not be involved in the
deliberative process leading to the establishment of moral principles,
while Hume (1777/1960) placed empathy at the core of morality.
Such normative issues can be understood best if a solid grasp of the
relationship between descriptive morality and empathy is acquired. To
help the reader understand the following discussion, we have illustrated
some of the ways in which empathy may play a role in morality (see
Figure 1).
In the following, we will discuss this relationship, addressing three main
questions: (1) Is empathy necessary for morality? (2) What role does
empathy play in morality? and (3) Can empathy also result in judgments
that are incompatible with moral principles and hence contribute to
morally wrong behaviors?
 Figure 8.1 Schematic representation of the relationship between empathy and morality.

(p.165) 1. Is Empathy Necessary for Morality?

The short answer is: No, empathy is not necessary for all aspects of
morality. By definition, the capacity to feel with another person
implies that empathy is only involved in morality when the object of
morality is another human being. However, moral norms also regulate
how people should behave toward nature, for example, by prescribing
that we not litter, destroy forests, and so on, or toward cultural
institutions, such as by prescribing that we return books borrowed from
a library. It is hard to see how empathy would be necessary for morality
in these contexts. Besides, even when moral judgments regulate
interactions with other human beings, there are circumstances in which
empathy is not necessary (see also Figure 1). First, several studies (see
Koenigs et al., 2007; Ugazio, Lamm, & Singer, 2012) have suggested that
certain types of moral judgments do not involve emotions (including
empathy). For instance, Koenigs and colleagues study compared the
moral judgments of patients with bilateral damage to the ventromedial
prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a brain area associated with affective
valuation processes (Damasio et al., 2000), to the moral judgments of
healthy individuals. The authors found that lesion patients only made
more utilitarian judgments than healthy controls in personal moral
dilemmas (i.e., when the action to be judged involved physical
interaction between the people in the scenario; see Greene,
Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001). In contrast, in
impersonal moral dilemmas (i.e., those in which the action to be judged
does not involve personal interactions; see Greene, Sommerville,
Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001), the judgments of the two groups of
individuals did not differ, suggesting that emotions are not involved in
this second type of moral judgments.
Second, the moral capacities of people suffering from psychopathologies
associated with an impaired capacity for empathy (see Blair, 1995) do
not differ from those of controls (Cima, Tonnaer, & Hauser, 2010).

2 . What Role Does Empathy Play in Morality?

The notion that empathy is not necessary for morality does not mean
that empathy might not play an important role in some types of
morality, however. As stated in the previous sections, we believe that
one of the most important roles of empathy in morality is an
epistemological one: As a mechanism for the observer to experience the
affective state of the observed person, empathy provides direct feedback
to the observer about how the consequences of an event are affecting or
will affect the observed person. For instance, if the consequences of an
agents action harm another person, the agent can learn (p.166) by
means of empathy that his actions are causing pain in the other person.
Following Humes (1777/1960) reasoning (see above), empathy, by
eliciting feelings of approbation or disapprobation, can be used to decide
whether an action should be considered morally right or wrong: If the
vicarious feeling we experience from observing the other person is a
pleasant one, then the action may be right, and if the feeling is negative,
the action may be wrong. Furthermore, by making a person aware of the
emotional state of others, empathy can motivate people to judge and
eventually act accordingly. For instance, if someone is in a negative
emotional state as a result of another persons actions, for example, feels
pain after being hit by another person, empathy may motivate an
observer to judge that hitting others is morally wrong and, by extension,
may motivate him to help the victim. However, as we illustrate below, an
empathy-driven judgment does not automatically correspond to a
morally appropriate judgment/action: Whether the judgment motivated
by empathy is morally right or wrong depends on the circumstances (see
also Figure 1).
There is some support for the above-mentioned role of empathy in
morality, although the direct link between empathy and morality
remains rather unclear and requires further investigation. A large body
of evidence has shown that certain types of moral judgments involve
strong emotions (e.g., Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen,
2001; Haidt, 2001; Majdandi et al., 2012; Ugazio, Lamm, & Singer,
2012). In line with this, it has been shown that vmPFC lesions, which
typically result in deficits in the ability to judge the moral
appropriateness of actions, are consistently associated with affective
impairment (Anderson, Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 1999;
Ciaramelli, Muccioli, Ldavas, & di Pellegrino, 2007). These emotions
can be either self-related or other-related, however, so the decisive role
of empathy is not clear-cut.
There is also more closely related, albeit not very specific evidence on
the link between morality and empathy, as defined here. The lack in
specificity stems from the fact that there are hardly any specific
behavioral or self-report measures of empathy in the sense of a shared
or copied state. Therefore, previous research has mainly used
questionnaires or self-reports that are more akin to measures of
empathic concern, sympathy, or compassion. For instance, it has been
shown that empathic concern is positively related to the tendency
toward harm aversion in moral judgments (Crockett, Clark, Hauser, &
Robbins, 2010). Similarly, Gleichgerrcht and Young (2013) found that
utilitarian moral decisions in moral dilemmas similar to the trolley
dilemma were negatively correlated with the level of empathic concern
(i.e., the lower the level of empathic concern, the more utilitarian
judgments were made). Interestingly, these authors found that empathic
concern was predictive of utilitarian judgments irrespective of other
emotional states often associated with empathy such as personal
distress or perspective taking. Moreover, our own recent (p.167) work
(Majdandi et al., 2012) has shown that moral decision-making
involving people who are perceived as being more human than others
is associated with neural and behavioral responses indicating increased
feelings with (in the sense of empathy) as well as feelings toward (in
the sense of sympathy) them. Furthermore, moral judgments involving
people perceived as being more human were less utilitarian.
Although the evidence suggesting that empathy is related to harm
aversion is rather convincing, the way in which an increased sensitivity
to harm aversion influences moral judgments is somewhat
controversial. While the evidence cited in the previous paragraph
suggests that empathy increases the aversion to harm to the one person
in the trolley dilemma, another study (Choe & Min, 2011) reports that
empathy might lead the moral decision-maker to help the larger group.
In this study, the authors found that if the emotion people reported as
being the strongest emotion they felt when making moral decisions was
empathy, this was predictive of a utilitarian decision in the moral
dilemma situations discussed above.
Furthermore, even if the predominant view of the relationship between
empathy and morality focuses on a directional role of empathy on moral
decision-making, we also need to consider how moral decisions affect
empathy. In other words, since our aesthetic judgment is affected by the
moral character of the object of aesthetic judgment (Kieran, 2006), a
persons moral decisions might influence the extent to which we
empathize with this person: If a persons moral decisions are congruent
with ours, we will be more likely to empathize with this person, and vice
versa. For example, Pillay (2011) found that peoples empathic responses
toward a police supervisor who hires a police officer who acted in a
controversial way, that is, ejected a paraplegic from his wheelchair
because he had broken the law, were affected by the moral judgment
they expressed about such a controversial action.
In sum, there are preliminary although not very specific indications that
empathy guides moral decisions, thus allowing us to factor the
emotional reactions of a person affected by an event into our moral
judgments. The inconsistent results discussed, however, reveal that the
empirical evidence describing the relationship between morality and
empathy is quite weak. Thus, a much deeper and more thorough
investigation of this relationship is required in order to achieve a more
satisfactory understanding of how empathy and morality are
interrelated. Some of the many possible explanations for the
heterogeneity in the findings are: (a) the different objects toward which
empathy is directedwhich in previous studies was either a larger group
of people or a single person (Choe & Min, 2011; Gleichgerrcht & Young,
2013); (b) whether the people described in the moral scenarios are
perceived as ingroup or outgroup members (Cikara, Bruneau, & Saxe,
2010; Majdandi et al., 2012); (c) the varying (p.168) methods used to
measure the levels of empathy, empathic concern, or other aspects of
empathy. For instance, while Crockett, Clark, Hauser, and Robbins
(2010) and Gleichgerrcht and Young (2013) used the Interpersonal
Reactivity Index (IRI, Davis 1980), Pillay (2011) used the Basic Empathy
Scale (BES, Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006), and Choe and Min (2011) as
well as Majdandi et al. (2012) asked people which emotion they felt
while making decisions; (d) interindividual and/or cross-cultural
differences in the samples investigated.
Although decisive evidence for a causal role of empathy in moral
judgments is still lacking, we will now briefly discuss a possible
mechanism through which empathy might influence moral decisions.
Briefly, empathy is an emotional process (according to the definition
provided above) and, considering that emotions have motivational
tendencies, these motivational tendencies can represent a plausible
mechanism through which empathy influences moral decisions. As
stated above, scholars from both philosophy and psychology claim that
morality can have an emotional valuation component as it steers people
to express their moral judgments in a certain way (i.e., in line with moral
prescriptions). The motivational importance of emotions for moral
judgments was recently captured by studies revealing that, by taking into
account the motivational tendencies of emotions, it is possible to predict
how certain emotions will affect moral judgments (Harl & Sanfey,
2010; Ugazio, Lamm, & Singer, 2012). For instance, we (Ugazio et al.,
2012) showed that when a person judges a moral scenario, emotional
states influence her choices in opposite ways depending on the
motivational tendencies of the emotion induced. People who were
induced to feel angeran approach emotionwere more likely to judge
a moral action in a permissive way as compared to people in a neutral
emotional state, and people induced to feel disgusta withdrawal
emotionwere more likely to judge the same actions in a less
permissive way. Having a solid understanding of the motivational
tendencies linked to empathy, as we define it here, may yield a better
understanding of how empathy motivates morality. Indeed, most of the
existing studies have investigated the importance of empathic concern
(Batson, 1991; Eisenberg, 2000a; Eisenberg et al., 1989a) or compassion
(Leiberg, Klimecki, & Singer, 2011), which are other-related emotional
responses that motivate prosocial behavior.

3 . Can Empathy Also Result in Judgments That Are Incompatible with

Moral Principles?
Although empathy and related emotional states such as empathic
concern, sympathy, or compassion have been implicated in motivating
prosocial behavior, a critical reader could ask whether the behavior
motivated by these(p.169) elements is actually morally right or simply
appears to be so. In many situations, it is not possible to claim that the
judgment motivated by empathy is actually morally good, or morally
better than judgments not motivated by empathy. For instance, consider
a study in which the participants are asked to allocate food (a scarce
resource) to two groups of children in Africa (Hsu, Anen, & Quartz,
2008). One of the two options would be to distribute the food equally
but inefficiently (i.e., the total amount is not maximized) among a group
of children. The other option would be to distribute the food efficiently
but unequally among the other group of children. Which of the two
allocation strategies is better can only be determined by referring to a
moral principle: If the accepted moral principle is that equality should
be maximized, then the first strategy is the morally preferable one; if the
accepted moral principle is that efficiency should be maximized, then
the second strategy is the morally preferable one. In this study, Hsu and
colleagues (2008) found that emotion-related neural networks seem to
be involved in motivating individuals to prefer an inefficient equity-
based distribution of scarce resources to a more efficient, but unequal
distribution. Based on these findings, one could speculate that the
empathy-driven moral judgment in this situation would be to choose the
equal but inefficient allocation strategy. Whether this strategy is the
morally appropriate one or not, however, depends on the normative
moral principle one is relying on in order to make the decision.
Similarly, in the trolley dilemma type of moral situation, in which one
has to decide whether sacrificing one person to prevent the death of
more people is the morally appropriate decision, the moral
appropriateness of the decision strategy is determined by the moral
principle one adheres to. A utilitarian would judge it to be morally
obligatory to sacrifice one person in order to save more even if to do so
required the use of a person as a means to the end, while a non-
consequentialist would judge it to be morally forbidden to sacrifice one
person to save many if the rights of the one person were violated in the
act. Thus, the role of empathy in motivating an agent to avoid harming a
single person (Crockett, Clark, Hauser, & Robbins, 2010) should be
considered morally neutral. Depending on the moral principle one
chooses to adopt, the motivated decision will be morally appropriate or
not.
Furthermore, due to the properties of our empathic responses (see
above, and Prinz 2004), one can identify several situations in which the
decisions motivated by empathy are actually morally wrong, which may
ultimately promote immoral behaviors. This is particularly well
illustrated by the fact that empathy is shown to be prone to ingroup bias.
For instance, Batsons social psychology study revealed that priming an
empathic response toward a person (Sheri) induced people to change
the priority order of a hospital waiting list, privileging Sheri at the
expense of other patients who had even been depicted (p.170) as
needing the hospital treatment more than she did (Batson, Early, &
Salvarini, 1997). Thus, empathy can lead to immoral behavior. In a
similar fashion, an empathic response triggered by the perceived
cuteness of a person can lead to more lenient moral condemnations of
despicable acts or, even worse, to some sort of worship of the
perpetrator of those actions, as for instance revealed by the recent public
debate following the Boston Marathon bombers. Some people were
reportedly feeling sorry for, and some teenage girls even reported being
in love with, the younger attacker (Bloom, 2013a). In addition, several
recent social neuroscience experiments demonstrated that neural
responses to others pain are stronger if the other person is a member of
ones own ethnic group (racial empathy bias, Avenanti, Sirigu, &
Aglioti, 2010) or ones social group. For instance, higher activity in the
neural network associated with empathy was found when participants
saw fans of their own favorite football team in pain compared to when
they saw members of the rivaling team in pain (Hein, Silani, Preuschoff,
Batson, & Singer.,2010). In addition, some of these responses were
predictive of an ingroup bias toward ones fellow fans in prosocial
behavior. Furthermore, Cikara, Farnsworth, Harris, & Fiske (2010)
provided evidence that people change their judgments of an action such
as sacrificing one life in order to save numerous other lives (as an
example of a utilitarian moral decision) depending on whether the
person to be sacrificed is an ingroup or outgroup member. Given that
empathy has been shown to be stronger for ingroups compared to
others, it is quite possible that the difference in moral considerations
identified in this study resulted from a biased empathic response.
Indeed, as previously mentioned, in a previous study (Majdandi et al.,
2012), we showed that moral judgments involving people who are
perceived as more human are less utilitarian. Thus, in this situation as
well, one can claim that empathy results in morally dubious decisions
and ultimately motivates morally dubious behavior by causing a person
to show partiality toward the (more human) peers of her ingroup.
Another instance of empathy being related to morally wrong decisions is
its tendency to trigger emotional responses that cause study participants
to prefer immediate over long-term effects. This can become
problematic in situations in which one knows that an action may have
immediate negative consequences but would have much better
outcomes in the long run. A very concrete example is given by the policy
adopted by many governments (e.g., the US government) to never
negotiate with terrorists. Imagine that a group of people has been
kidnapped by a terrorist organization, which is asking for a ransom in
order to free them. If the state/family does not pay, they will kill all the
hostages. In this case, the empathic response would most certainly focus
on the immediate negative consequence of the death of the kidnapped
people, and the resulting judgment would probably be that the ransom
should be paid (p.171) and that the hostages should be freed unharmed
as soon as possible. However, in the long run, refusing to negotiate with
terrorists may better protect the safety of everybody as terrorists lose the
incentive to kidnap people.
Furthermore, our empathic capacity to understand the emotional states
of others can be exploited. In some situations, people might use
empathy to develop behavioral strategies that will benefit them by
allowing them to take advantage of the negative affective states
generated in others. For instance, football players might have an overly
aggressive attitude at the beginning of a game in order to induce fear in
their opponents and diminish their football skills. In more dramatic
situations, empathy can be used in torture, as it enables the torturer to
know whether and, if so, how his methods are inflicting pain on another
person, and in war, when guerrillas repeatedly strike civilian targets to
generate confusion and panic and overcome their stronger opponents.
Other crude situations in which empathy might motivate immoral
behavior include those in which warlords commit atrocities to increase
the humanitarian aid flowing into their country, aid which they can
subsequently tax, or to force other countries to accommodate their
requests, or those in which parents cripple their children so that they
become more productive beggars (Bloom, 2013b).

Conclusion
In this chapter, we have tried to shed light on the relationship between
empathy and morality. In the first two sections, we defined and
contextualized morality and empathy, respectively, in order to identify
some of the potential connections between the two. In the resulting
theoretical framework, we identified an epistemological and a
motivational role of empathy in morality, but also pointed out that
empathy cannot be considered a necessary condition for morality.
Neither the epistemological nor the motivational aspects of empathy
align themselves specifically with judgments or motivations that are
morally right. We propose that empathy contributes to moral judgments
by providing information about the emotional reactions of people
affected by an action and by motivating a person to act in a certain way.
Whether these decisions are in accordance with moral principles
depends on the contextual circumstances in which an agent finds
himself or herself. In sum, these views point to a much more complex
link between empathy and morality than the one suggested by the
widely held folk belief that empathy is closely and directly linked to all
aspects of morality.
On Empathy
A Perspective from Developmental Psychopathology
R. Peter Hobson
Jessica A. Hobson

Introduction
Over the past two decades, and across the disciplines of philosophy,
developmental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, there has been a
resurgence of interest in the nature of human beings psychological
connectedness with each other, and alongside this, debate over the basis
for young childrens understanding of peoples minds. For many of those
caught up in the intellectual maelstrom, as well as for many more who
catch news from afar that something momentous is being deliberated,
there appears to be a relatively clear-cut option: either people are
connected with, and understand, other individuals by simulating their
mental states, or people need to theorize about minds. True, there are
so-called hybrid theories that encompass certain features of each
approach, but these inherit the intellectual restrictions and
preoccupationsand in particular, a way of thinking about the gulf
between one persons mind and that of anotherthat characterize a
stand-off between two dominant schools of thought.
At what point does empathy enter the fray? Empathy is an especially
interesting case for the study of how young children develop
interpersonal relations (p.173) and come to understand the mind. One
reason is that to many people it seems obvious that if an individual is to
have an empathic emotional response to someone elses suffering (for
example), then that individual must already have a sophisticated
conceptual understanding of what it means to be a self with a subjective
orientation. After all, the one person needs to figure out or imagine what
the other is feeling, perhaps on the model of what the observer is prone
to feel under similar circumstances. Opposed to such a view are
arguments that one could not acquire an understanding of other people
with minds unless one could already relate to them in a manner that is
empathic (Hamlyn, 1974; Hobson, 1991). If one were to apprehend
people (or more accurately, peoples bodies) like things, for example,
there would be little to justify the ascription of subjective states to these
bodies, even if, implausibly, one could conceptualize such states all by
oneself in order to do so (see Hobson, 1991, for further arguments
against a simulationist view). The resolution of these conflicting
perspectives over empathy might have far-reaching consequences for
our view of the development of social cognition and morality.
There is a second reason why the study of empathy could help us clarify
the nature of interpersonal understanding and what it means to hold a
moral stance in relation to others. Let us take it that our having empathy
for someone else reflects our grasp that the person has a subjective
orientation of his/her own. Even if one acknowledges that this grasp is
partly intellectual/cognitive in nature, clearly it is not simply cognitive,
because we have feelings about and/or in relation to that persons state
of mind. It matters to us when we witness a person suffering. Not only
this, but we are inclined to do something about the state of affairs. To be
sure, what we are inclined to do varies from case to caseconsider the
friend who seeks to comfort, the surgeon who prepares his team to
operate, and the torturer who racks up the painbut in each case, the
other persons suffering motivates us to act, and to act in relation to the
state of suffering. Does this mean we need a developmental account that
traces how empathy is constructed out of cognitive (thought), affective
(feeling), and conative (will) components? Or to the contrary, should the
nature of empathy prompt us to rethink the justification for dividing up
the psychological domain in this way? Here we offer an account that
eschews the division of empathy into cognitive and affective
varieties, and entails a reorientation toward empathy as an evolving
mode of interpersonal relatedness with cognitive and affective aspects.
In addressing these issues, we shall adopt the stance of developmental
psychopathology. We shall consider early human development, in order
to reflect upon the structure of interpersonal experience that empathy
entails. We shall compare and contrast typical development with a case
of atypical development, namely that of early childhood autism, in order
to give an extra dimension to these considerations. Through the study of
a condition where empathy (p.174) is seriously compromised, we may
acquire insight into the nature of empathy itself. More than this, we
might discover that what is often portrayed as a rather cool
understanding of disembodied minds is actually founded upon
dynamic and affectively charged relations between embodied persons,
relations that are vividly exemplified by empathy.
A final feature of our approach is that we shall consider empathy
alongside other modes of human relatedness and thinking. Our aim here
is to remind us how empathy is but one among diverse forms of social
engagement that implicate human-specific modes of self-other
connectedness and differentiation. Partly for this reason, we do not
consider it worthwhile to dwell on the distinction between, say, empathy
and sympathy. Suffice it to say that we are taking empathy to encompass
a class of personal relations that provide a basis for human beings to
experience persons as persons and that establish the foundations for
what will become conceptual understandings of people with minds.
Having sketched out some of the theoretical issues, we shall dive
straight in to some empirical research on autism.

Studies in Autism
Autism is a syndrome. A syndrome is simply a cluster of clinical features
that tend to occur together. Children with autism have profound
impairments in social relatedness and both nonverbal and verbal
communication, as well as a tendency toward rigid and repetitive forms
of activity and thinking.
We begin with evidence that autism involves a severe restriction in the
childrens empathic relations toward other people. Our intention is not
so much to illustrate that autism involves abnormality in this respect.
Rather, we want to see if we can begin to specify in what the restriction
consists, in order that this might inform our view of what empathy
entails.
We have not space to dwell on clinical observations on autism, although
Kanner (1943) gives fine descriptions of what he called the childrens
impaired affective contact with others. However, we shall provide a brief
illustration of what such impairment might mean for affected
individuals experience of other people. Here is what an intelligent
young autistic adult said when interviewed by the psychiatrist Donald
Cohen (1980). This man described how the first years of his life were
devoid of people:
I really didnt know there were people until I was seven years old. I
then suddenly realised that there were people. But not like you do. I
still have to remind myself that there are people . . . I never could
have a friend. I really dont know what to do with other people,
really.
(p.175) Now let us turn to a classic quasi-experimental study by the
UCLA team of Sigman, Kasari, Kwon, and Yirmiya (Sigman, Kasari,
Kwon, & Yirmiya, 1992; also Charman, Swettenham, Baron-Cohen, Cox,
Baird, & Drew, 1997). These researchers tested 30 young autistic
children with a mean age of under four years, along with closely
matched children without autism. The approach was to code these
childrens behavior when an adult pretended to hurt herself by hitting
her finger with a hammer, simulated fear toward a remote-controlled
robot, and pretended to be ill by lying down on a couch for a minute,
feigning discomfort.
In each of these situations, children with autism were unusual in rarely
looking at or relating to the adult. When the adult pretended to be hurt,
for example, children with autism often appeared unconcerned and
continued to play with toys. When a small remote-controlled robot
moved toward the child and stopped about four feet away, the parent
and the experimenter, who were both seated nearby, made fearful facial
expressions, gestures and vocalizations for 30 seconds. Almost all the
children without autism looked at an adult at some point during this
period, but fewer than half the children with autism did so, and then
only briefly. The children with autism were not only less hesitant than
the mentally retarded children in playing with the robot, but they also
played with it for substantially longer periods of time.
These observations extend beyond person-with-person responsiveness,
insofar as the children with autism were less influenced by the fearful
attitudes of those around them when it came to their behavior toward
the robot. They appeared to be relatively unengaged not only in their
one-to-one interpersonal-affective transactions, but also in relation to
another persons emotional attitudes toward objects and events in the
environment. They were not gripped by the others plight, nor moved to
adopt the others affective stance toward a shared world. They were less
drawn toward the stance of the other personor as we have expressed
this elsewhere (Hobson, Chidambi, Lee, & Meyer, 2006), less other-
person-centeredthan were the children without autism.
From the starting-point of this quasi-experimental study, let us move in
two directions. First, we turn to a tightly controlled experiment, because
experiments are especially useful in determining the specificity of
abnormalities such as that of childrens unresponsiveness to expressions
of feeling. Moore, Hobson, and Lee (1997) tested children and
adolescents with and without autism, matched for age and verbal ability,
and showed them videotape sequences of peoples moving bodies
depicted merely by dots of light attached to the trunk and limbs. First we
presented separate five-second sequences of the point-light person
enacting in turn the gestures of surprise, sadness, fear, anger, and
happiness (each of which could be recognized with very high
(p.176) reliability by nave adult raters). In the surprise sequence, for
example, the person walked forward and suddenly checked his stride and
jerked backward with his arms thrown out to the side; in the sad
sequence, the person walked forward with a stooped posture, paused,
and sighed. The children were told: Youre going to see some bits of
film of a person moving. I want you to tell me about this person. Tell me
whats happening.
In response to this request, all but one of the children without autism
made a spontaneous comment about the persons emotional state for at
least one out of the five presentations, and most referred to emotions on
two or more of the sequences. In contrast, 10 of the 13 children with
autism never referred to emotional states, whether correctly or
incorrectly. In the case of the children and adolescents with autism, it
was the persons movements and actions rather than feelings that were
reported. For example, the sad figure was described as walking and
sitting down on a chair, walking and flapping arms and bent down,
and walking and waving his arms and kneeling down . . . hands to face.
Almost none of these responses were wrong, but very few referred to the
depicted persons feelings.
It was not that the children with autism were unable to interpret what
they saw. They did so very well and conveyed this in complex
psychological terms that captured the peoples actions. They were
distinctive in failing to report on the subjective experience of the
depicted figures.
Now let us move in a second direction, toward real-life descriptions of
how children with autism relate to others. Colleagues and ourselves
(Hobson, Chidambi, Lee, & Meyer, 2006) conducted semi-structured
interviews with parents of children with autism, and children without
autism of similar age (613 years) and verbal mental age (3.59 years).
Most of the questions concerned whether the children showed social
emotions such as jealousy, guilt, and concern. We enquired after specific
instances of each emotion. For example, the question about jealousy
was: Have you observed jealousy in your childthat is, resenting the
attention you or someone else is giving to other individuals?
Parents of both groups of children reported that their offspring showed
feelings such as happiness, distress, and anger (although we did not
enquire closely on the person-directedness of the anger). They also
reported that their children were affected by the moods of other people,
and here it was clear that the children with autism were not globally
unresponsive. Nor was it the case that all forms of differentiated
relatedness were absent. In particular, the groups were almost identical
insofar as the majority of children with as well as without autism
showed clear signs of jealousy. Indeed, of the only two parents who
thought that their children with autism did not show jealousy, one was
our only poor respondent, and the other was far from confident about
(p.177) the matter. Here is an example of what one parent said about
her child with autism:
I:
He doesnt like S (partner) and me hugging or holding hands
sometimes . . . When he was very tiny, like two, he was very
jealous of us I think. He didnt like us sitting next to each other
or hugging. I remember one occasion when he actually led you
[to partner] to the door and shut the door.
On the other hand, when parents were asked about their childrens
emotions of pity, concern, and guilt, there were marked group
differences. A majority of children without autism were said to show
clear manifestations of these feelings. In the case of the children with
autism, by contrast, a majority showed possible or atypical signs of pity
and concern, but only one was reported to show clear instances of these
feelings. For instance, here are two parents describing their children
with autism:
PARENT 1:
When it comes to concern for feelings of others, if he was told
we were upset, perhaps hed be concerned. Im not sure he
would be able to pick it up very easily. He might actually find it
quite hard to deal with as he finds it hard when people are
upset. He might actually insist we stop. I dont imagine he
would like it. He might be worried but he doesnt have that
empathy sort of concernhe doesnt show that at all . . .
Empathetic sadness isnt there.
PARENT 2:
When Im sad, it disturbs him, he doesnt quite know what to
do and then he just looks and if I dont say anything, he just
moves away. A normal child would ask or say what is
happening, he wouldnt.
Again, it is not the case that the children were unresponsive. Rather, it
was in the organization of their behavioral and expressive relatedness
and some theorists might become exercised over whether this is in the
organization of their thinking, feeling, or motivationthat the children
with autism were said to be atypical. To repeat: few parents were able to
report that their children with autism showed clear instances of other-
person-centered emotions such as guilt, pity, or empathic concern for
someone else, nor shame or embarrassment before another person.
We trust these observations illustrate the vital links between feeling for
others and moral attitudes such as guilt and concern, as well as behavior
that expresses such an orientation to other human beings. These reports
from parents are complemented by what may be gleaned from self-
reports given by verbally fluent children and adolescents with autism.
For example, Kasari, Chamberlain, and Bauminger (2001) described how
high-IQ children with (p.178) autism reported feeling guilt, but only
14% participants with autism (versus 42% of those with typical
development) spoke of guilt over physical harm to others, and none
referred to emotional harm such as hurting someones feelings. Instead
they were more likely (73% of instances) to describe situations of rule-
breaking, disruptiveness, or property damage. In the case of
embarrassment, fewer participants with autism explicitly mentioned an
audience (also Capps, Yirmiya, & Sigman, 1992).
Now if children with autism tend to show less concern than children
without autism, then does this amount to more than a failure to perceive
and/or respond to expressions of emotion? Or is there a more far-
reaching limitation in the childrens propensity to experience and
orientate to other persons as centres of subjectivity?
Consider the following study (J.A. Hobson, Harris, Garca-Prez, & R.P.
Hobson, 2009). Sixteen school-age children with autism and 16 children
without autism of similar age and verbal ability took part. The children
were between the ages of eight and sixteen years, with a mean verbal
mental age of about seven years. There were two adult testers who sat
around a table with a participant and played a game in which they each
drew an animal of their choice. Then in a standardized, slow-paced
procedure, one tester proceeded to tear up the drawing of the other
tester. The tester whose drawing was torn did not show any overt
emotional reaction to the event, although she did witness its occurrence.
Therefore it could not be the case that an observable emotional display
played a role in triggering participants responses. In a control condition,
a blank piece of paper was torn instead of a picture.
Videotapes of the episodes were given to two raters who were asked to
find each look to the tester whose drawing was torn and then evaluate
which of those looks expressed concern. These were looks in which the
child appeared to become involved with the tester whose drawing was
torn, apparently taking on her psychological stance (becoming upset on
her behalf), experiencing concern for her feelings, or showing a sense of
discomfort about her position (e.g., through nervous laughter). The
raters had excellent agreement on the quality of such looks.
The results were that when the blank index card was torn, the children
rarely looked at the tester seated across the table. When it was the
testers drawing that was torn, however, some of the children with
autism, but especially those without autism, looked at her during or
immediately after the event. More importantly, while on the blank
drawing condition only one child (a child without autism) ever showed
a concerned lookand only onceon the tear drawing condition, ten
out of sixteen children without autism showed between one and six
concerned looks, while only three out of (p.179) sixteen children with
autism ever showed a concerned look. We should add that this group
difference was not confined to differences in quality of looks, because
other expressions of concern were relatively lacking among the children
with autism.
Any interpretation of the results needs to account for the speed with
which, as well as the feeling with which, participants without autism
looked to the tester whose drawing was torn. One might also take into
account how charged an atmosphere was generated by the procedure.
Empathy can be very powerfulalbeit not, it seemed, for most of these
participants with autism.

Beyond Empathy
Now we turn to some research that may help us to see what it is that is
missing in the ill-organized and diminished empathic responsiveness of
children with autism. We are hoping that the studies we shall report give
substance to the claim that the children are limited in the propensity to
identify with the attitudes of other peoplea capacity we take to be
critical in the development of a moral sense toward other feeling human
beings.
To introduce this idea, let us return to a theoretical point: empathy
means responding to the other persons feelings as the others feelings.
The feelings involved in an empathic response are both ones own and
experienced in relation to the subjective state of the other. In what sense
is the others subjective state felt?
One way to approach this question is to consider what it means to
identify with someone else. The important thing about identification is
precisely that one feels in accordance with the other, but one does not
entirely become the other. The other persons feelings-as-experienced
are part of ones own complex response, yet these are still partitioned
off, as it were, within that response. One implication is that the other-
person-anchored part of the experience can be relived. It can become a
part of ones own repertoire, both in relation to the world and in relation
to oneself.
Now if human forms of empathy entail identification, in the sense of a
specially powerful connectedness through involvement with the others
actions and attitudes, then perhaps we should revisit autism to see if
there is evidence for weakness in the propensity to identify with others.
This issue becomes even more pressing once one appreciates that it is in
being moved to the emotional stance of others, and therefore in
adopting alternative perspectives through others, that children with
autism are especially handicapped. We have already seen some
implications for social referencing (from the study of reactions to
(p.180) a toy robot), and there are further repercussions for joint
attention, symbolic functioning, and language (e.g., Hobson, 2002/4).
We shall cite three research studies, very briefly, to illustrate pertinent
findings.

(a) Imitation
Hobson and Lee (1999) tested matched groups of children with and
without autism for their ability to imitate a person demonstrating four
novel goal-directed actions on objects in two contrasting styles, which
in most cases meant executing the actions either harshly or gently. The
children with autism copied the goal-directed aspect of the actions, but
showed marked divergence from the control group insofar as very few
adopted the demonstrators style of acting upon the objects involved.
We believe that this reveals a distinction between childrens ability to
observe and copy actions per se, relatively intact in autism (and here you
may recall autistic childrens ability to recognize actions but not
attitudes in videotaped point-light displays of humans gestures), and
the propensity to identify with and thereby imitate apersons expressive
mode of relating to the world, something that is relatively lacking in
autism.
There was a further finding from this study. In one condition, the
investigator demonstrated strumming a stick against a pipe-rack held
against his own shoulder. What happened when the children without
autism copied this action is that a substantial majority identified with
the demonstrator and positioned the pipe-rack against their own
shoulders before they strummed it with the stick. By contrast, few of the
children with autism made this adjustment: most positioned the pipe-
rack on the table directly in front of them. Therefore not only with
respect to style, but also with respect to self-orientation, the children
with autism did not assume the manner with which the other person
executed actions, even though they copied the actions per se.
In our view, these results were not merely an index of imitative styles
that followed perception; rather, they rendered explicit what the
perception entailed in terms of registering and assimilating the stance of
the person demonstrating the actions. Indeed, we interpreted the
findings as reflecting how children with autism have a relative ability to
copy (as well as perceive) simple goal-directed actions on objects, but a
reduced propensity toidentify with the person whose actions those were.
As in the dots of light study, children with autism seemed to view the
actions from the outside, rather than getting beneath the skin of the
person they observed.
(p.181) We have conducted more recent studies that have confirmed
group differences in the imitation of style and self-orientation (J. A.
Hobson & Hobson, 2007; Hobson & Hobson, 2008; Hobson, Lee, &
Hobson, 2007; Meyer & Hobson, 2004). It is intriguing that here, in
contexts where the emotional quality of the task appears to be minimal,
but where self/other role reversals appear to play a critical role in
determining participants responses, children with autism are
distinctive. This raises the possibility that in typical development, the
self/other structure of empathic engagement derives from something
more general, namely the organisation of identifying-with.

(b) Non-verbal Communication

A study of what identifying-with can mean for communication was
conducted by Hobson and Meyer (2005). We presented a sticker test in
which children needed to communicate to another person where on her
body she should place her sticker-badge. The majority of children
without autism pointed to a site on their own bodies to indicate the
testers body, that is, anticipating that the other person would identify
with their act of identifying with her body. The children with autism
rarely communicated in this way; instead, most pointed to the body of
the investigator to indicate where the sticker should be placed.
Although it is possible that flexible self-other transpositions in stance
depend upon thinking or understanding other peoples minds, we
consider it more likely that such seemingly effortless and natural stance-
shifting reflects a more basic form of self-other connectedness and
differentiation that has a cognitive aspect, but motivational aspects too.

(c) Conversation
One of the things that happens in a conversation is that each speaker
tends to pick up features of the other persons language when framing
their subsequent responses. This is more than a kind of echoing,
because each conversational partner builds upon what he or she adopts
(and often adapts) from the other person. Here is an example from a
child with autism talking to an interviewer:
I:
What are you good at?
P:
I am good at, eh, science.
In a collaborative study (Du Bois, Hobson, & Hobson, 2014; Hobson,
Hobson, Garca-Prez, & Du Bois, 2012), we studied conversational
linkage between an (p.182) adult and matched participants with and
without autism. Our principal prediction was that failures to build on
what is adopted from the conversational partner would be different in
the two groups. It turned out that although children with autism picked
up linguistic forms from their conversational partner, they were (as
predicted) significantly more likely to follow this with incoherent,
truncated, vague, or nonresponsive elaboration. Here is one example:
i: And tell me things about yourself that you dont like.
p: That I dont like.
Why did we predict that such abnormalities would occur more often in
the conversations involving children with autism? Because here, in the
linguistic domain, is something closely akin to identifying-with the
stance of the other that we have already described in the domains of
empathy, imitation, and self-other coordination of nonverbal
communication. Critically, as Freud (1955/1921) remarked,
identification involves not just imitation but assimilation, a making of
ones own such that what is assimilated can become foundational for
what follows. Our results confirmed that in conversation, children with
autism are less drawn into adopting the stance of the other (as
linguistically expressed), and to construct their succeeding utterances
upon this basis.

Back to Theory
From developmental and epistemological viewpoints, the crux of the
matter is this: Does having and showing empathy require conceptual
understanding of the nature of other people (and perhaps the self) as
beings with subjective experiences and minds of their own? Or is such
conceptual understanding a developmental achievement founded upon
earlier and more basic forms of affective responsiveness in which
humans register the otherness of the other (Hobson, 1993a, b; Hobson
et al., 2006; Hoffman, 1984b)?
Within the literature on typically developing young children, as
Thompson (1987) points out, the dominance of cognitive-developmental
perspectives on emotional awareness and responsiveness, coupled with
an emphasis on relatively detached and intellectually demanding
methods to assess empathy, may have underestimated infants
capacities for feeling toward others who are apprehended, but not
conceptualized, as separate beings. Although someone who empathizes
has the ability to register and sense self/other differentiation, this does
not necessarily entail that he or she conceptualizes this distinction, nor
that imaginative role-taking (or so-called cognitive empathy) is
required (p.183) for such responsiveness. The appropriate way to
characterize empathy is up for grabs.
How much might cognitive perspective taking accomplish by way of
empathic concern, if the perspective-taker did not bring to the situation
a background of affective engagement with others? Consider the
philosophical account of Goldie (2000), which may be taken as an
exemplifying an approach that distills some of the potential value of a
cognitive theory while avoiding many of its pitfalls. Goldie himself
stresses how there is a nonderived intentional element to feelings
(feeling towards), and criticizes the over-intellectualization of
emotion in contemporary philosophy (p. 11). Despite this, Goldie
considers that our abilities to empathize, to imagine ourselves in
another persons shoes, and to sympathize themselves presuppose some
degree of understanding (pp. 177178). Not only this, but in order to
understand and explain another persons emotion, Goldie claims, it
does not require that any emotion be felt by the interpreter (p. 181,
Goldies italics).
Here Goldie is writing about imaginative empathy among adults and is
not concerned with developmental issues. Yet from developmental and
epistemological standpoints, it is critical whether or not there needs to
be abackground of feeling for other people if one is to understand and
explain another persons emotion. If Martians were to have no feelings
for other Martians nor anyone else, how far would they understand what
it is for someone to have an emotion or be in an emotional state?
Probably, not far at all. First, they would not understand what it is to be
a someone, because understanding persons is grounded in the kinds of
relations we experience with persons, and those relations are based on
feelings (Hamlyn, 1974); second, they would not understand what it is to
have a person-centered subjective orientation (Hobson, 1993a); and
third, they would not have the kinds of socially derived cognitive
architecture to understand in the relevant manner (Hobson,1993b).
The quotation from Goldie includes the claim that sympathy also
presupposes understanding. He considers that sympathy is distinct from
the imaginative processes of empathy: It is, I think, best understood as
a sort of emotion, involving thought about and feelings towards the
difficulties of another, motivations to alleviate those difficulties where
possible, and characteristic facial expressions and expressive actions
(Goldie, 2000, p. 9). Working up a head of steam, Goldie moves toward a
climax: It is entirely mistaken to assume that in addition to this
recognition of, feeling towards, and response to anothers difficulties,
sympathy also involves undergoing difficulties and having feelings of the
same sort as the other persons . . . your feelings involve caring about
the others suffering, not sharing them (p. 214, Goldies italics). Good
point, and nicely expressed. We shall return to sorts of emotion in due
course.
(p.184) Meanwhile, one might balance Goldies account with that of
someone who defends simulationist views, but whose writings seem to
relinquish central tenets of simulationism. Stueber (2006) specifically
rejects a detached conception of simulation and the invocation of
analogical inferences from self to other. Instead, Stueber suggests the
following: Mechanisms of basic empathy have to be understood as
mechanisms that underlie our theoretically unmediated quasi-
perceptual ability to recognize other creatures directly as minded
creatures and to recognize them implicitly as creatures that are
fundamentally like us (p. 20). Not only this, but Stueber insists that one
does not start from a position of detecting or interpreting others as like
me, but rather, I understand my subjectivity as a moment of
interpersonal intersubjectivity (p. 143).
One wonders, then, how Stueber places himself among empathy
theorists who claim that in learning of other minds we proceed
essentially in an egocentric manner . . . My finding out about another
persons mind depends on using myself and my own mind as a standard
or model for the other persons mind. In particular, proponents of the
empathy view claim that I gain knowledge of other minds primarily
because I can simulate or imitate others mental processes in my own
mind (pp. 34). Perhaps the reason is that Stueber is most concerned
with a specific mode of re-enactive empathy, a personal-level process
central to our understanding of others as agents. His thesis is as follows:
Only insofar as I treat her thoughts as thoughts that could be my own . .
. can I grasp them as her thoughts and as thoughts that constitute her
reasons for her action (p. 165). Here we find vestiges of a simulationist
stance, yet much of the original theory appears to have been jettisoned.
At this point we can turn to phenomenological perspectives.
Phenomenology gives us conceptual tools to loosen the shackles of
prejudice that bind us to a very questionable view of the human
condition, namely that we need to theorize or analogize if we are to
understand the minds of our fellow human beings. Writers such as
Scheler (1954) and Merleau-Ponty (1964) point out how it is simply not
so, because we perceive feelings in the bodily expressions and behavior
of other people. More than this, our mode of person perception is such
that we become engaged with the persons whom we perceive. Merleau-
Ponty (1964, p. 146) suggests that Sympathy . . . is the simple fact that I
live in the facial expressions of the other, as I feel him living in mine.
Elaborating further, he writes:
In perceiving the other, my body and his are coupled, resulting a
 sort of action which pairs them [action deux]. This conduct which
I am able only to see, I live somehow from a distance. I make it
mine; I recover [reprendre] it or comprehend it . . . Mimesis is the
ensnaring of me by the other, the invasion of me by the other; it is
that attitude whereby I assume the gestures, (p.185) the conducts,
the favorite words, the ways of doing things of those whom I
confront . . . [it] is the power of assuming conducts or facial
expressions as my own. . . . (Merleau-Ponty, 1964, pp. 118 and 145)
It is notable how Merleau-Ponty uses the words live and living in
these quotations. One persons perception of another entails a rich form
of intersubjective involvement. From this theoretical starting-point, we
encounter no mystery when addressing how one persons non-
conceptually-mediated relations with others provide the basis for that
person coming to understand the nature of people-with-minds. As long
as we can explain how a child comes to acquire the conceptual
equipment to think about embodied persons as having mental states, it
will be natural for those states-as-conceptualized to be ascribed to
appropriate targets, namely persons or person-like creatures (or
occasionally, things). This will be the case even when we are considering
mental states that do not necessarily find overt expression, such as a
persons beliefs.
This does not mean that all the philosophical problems are solved, of
course. But the challenges facing a developmental account are no longer
those explaining how the gap between one persons experiences and
those of another are bridged. Rather, the tasks become those of
explicating the structure of self-other relations, and then explaining how
on the basis of such relations, children develop (and adults fluently
apply) concepts of mind.
On the question of empathy, there are subtle controversies within as
well as beyond the domain of phenomenology. Zahavi (2010) has
discussed points of agreement and disagreement among Scheler, Stein,
and Husserl. For each of these thinkers, empathy is a basic, irreducible
form of intentionality that is directed toward the experiences of others.
They reject the view that imitation, emotional contagion, or mimicry is
the paradigm of empathy. Instead, empathy is like perception in being
direct, unmediated, and noninferential. Yet Zahavi also contrasts the
views of Scheler, who argues that emotional states are given in
expressive phenomena so that we are directly acquainted with anothers
feelings, with those of Stein and Husserl, who stress that another
persons experiences cannot be given to me in the same way as my own
experiences and that the empathized experience is located in the other.
As Zahavi argues, however, these differences may not be so substantial,
if there are ways of experiencing (rather than imagining, simulating, or
theorizing) anothers subjectivity that is not the same as having first-
person experience, but is no less valid as a primary mode of experience.
And this is critical.
Phenomenological views on the direct and unmediated quality of
interpersonal experience does not (of course) entail that
phenomenologists eschew attempts to determine subpersonal
mechanisms that underlie such experience, whether at a psychological
or neurological level. The claim is that whatever (p.186) form these
mechanisms might take, at root they do not involve processes such as
inferring mental states from the perception of mindless bodies, nor the
projection of feelings based upon ones own experiences.
I want to highlight two features of phenomenological discussions that
may be especially worth bearing in mind.
First, in an interesting review of alternative phenomenological
perspectives on empathy, Zahavi (2001, p 163) elaborates on Merleau-
Ponty thus:
Since intersubjectivity is in fact possible, there must exist a bridge
between my self-acquaintance and my acquaintance with others; my
experience of my own subjectivity must contain an anticipation of
the other, must contain the seeds of alterity . . . Thus, Merleau-
Ponty can describe embodied self-awareness as a presentiment of
the other.
What this means is that, for all the attention we should give to
someones experience in actual face-to-face interpersonal encounters,
we should also consider what the individualand from a developmental
perspective, the individual in question may be an infantbrings to such
encounters to give self-other structure to such experience (also Brten,
1998, on the virtual other).
Second, there is the issue of role-taking (broadly conceived), as this
features in many aspects of interpersonal relatedness. Merleau-Ponty
(1964) cites the psychoanalytic notion of identification in a passage
where he reflects on the emergence of language in what he refers to as
the childs affective environment. He describes how a child assimilates
the attitudes of his mother and continues thus: To learn to speak is to
learn to play a series of roles, to assume a series of conducts or linguistic
gestures (p. 109, Merleau-Pontys italics). Not only in language but also
in other spheres of communication, there is an intimate relation
between connecting with others and being moved into new orientations
and stances vis--vis the world.

Identifying-with Revisited
How does an account invoking a biologically based process of identifying
with the attitudes of others square with these considerations?
We have seen that research in autism has yielded evidence that, in
situations that range from empathy to imitation and from nonverbal
communication to conversation, affected children seem restricted in the
organization of their social behavior and experience. This restriction is
of a specific kind. In particular, children with autism are not gripped by
the expressions of other people, they are not so powerfully moved to
adopt the stance of the other in (p.187) relation to a shared world, and
their communication is often lacking flexibility and role-responsiveness.
In concert with all this, by the way, they also have specific limitations in
self-awareness (see Hobson et al., 2006). In short: individuals with
autism have a weakened propensity to identify with the attitudes of
others.
I hope that the studies of autism I have described might help to anchor
what may otherwise seem a rather abstract characterization of
identifying-with in what follows.
The notion of identifying-with comes from psychoanalysis. The
definition provided by Laplanche and Pontalis (1973, p. 205) is a good
place to start: Psychological process whereby the subject assimilates an
aspect, property or attribute of the other and is transformed, wholly or
partially, after the model the other provides. Through the process of
identifying with others bodily expressed emotional attitudes, for
example, an individual perceives and assimilates the attitudes in such a
way that they become possibilities for the persons own relations with
the world, including the individuals relations toward him- or herself.
Children who are beaten may come not only to beat others, but also to
have punitive attitudes toward themselves.
There is a complication here, namely that the very nature of
identification changes with development. Although Freud (1955/1921)
illustrated his notion with a cognitively elaborated instance, namely a
boys wish to be like his father, he concluded a brief essay on
identification with a footnote in which he made the following claim: A
path leads from identification by way of imitation to empathy, that is, to
the comprehension of the mechanism by means of which we are enabled
to take up any attitude at all towards another mental life (p. 110).
Clearly this refers to a much more basic level of identifying-with, but
one for which it remains true that . . . identification is not simple
imitation but assimilation(Freud, 1953/1900, p. 150, Freuds italics).
Identifying-with is a process that links individuals without merging their
identities. In the act of connecting with someone else through
identification, one retains a distinction between self and other as a basis
for oneself assuming what one experiences as the other persons stance.
To repeat: what is experienced as other-centered within ones own
experience can become a feature of ones self-centered repertoire of
feeling and action.
Therefore the notion of identification that we employ does not
correspond with the concept of self-other merging justifiably criticized
by Batson (2011, pp. 14560). The idea is not that oneself and the other
become indistinguishable, nor that one experiences what someone else
experiences, nor that there is a confusion between self and other. Like
Batson, we have emphasized that at the core of empathy is the capacity
and propensity to feel for others, for their own sakes. Where Batson
(2011, p. 11) refers to other-oriented emotions, (p.188) we have
written of person-centered qualities of relational self-awareness
(Hobson, Chidambi, Lee, & Meyer, 2006, p. vii), where the critical
feature is that the other person is encompassed within a feeling state.
In the case of responding to attitudes, there appears to be a dissociation
between being affected by expressions of feeling in others in a rather ill-
focussed manner, and being affected (through identification) by the
other persons feelings as the feelings of another self with whom one is
engaged (Hobson, Chidambi, Lee, Meyer,2006, p. 135).
In order to think about this further, consider the case of sharing
experiences. If I have an experience of sharing feelings with someone
else, this is indeed my own experience. On the other hand, it is only (felt
to be) sharing insofar as my experience encompasses the other as
participating, with me, in that experience. In other instances, ones
interpersonal experience may encompass a registration of the others
attitude, for example of anger, alongside a complementary feeling of a
different kind, say of fear. In yet other cases, where one might identify
with attitudes directed elsewhere than toward oneself, the others
attitude may be registered with relative equanimity. In the case of
empathy, ones responsiveness to someone elses suffering encompasses
both what one registers as a result of seeing or imagining the person
suffering and a relation toward the person. In each instance, there is a
special structure and phenomenology to such experiences, one that
entails that one registers the distinctiveness of whatever is experienced
as originating in the other.
Vital aspects of psychological development occur through the
interiorization of interpersonal transactions, as long argued by
psychoanalysts and developmentalists in the tradition of Vygotsky
(1978). The conundrum is that the individual needs to construct the
socialor if you like, experience the social as socialwhere what is
social then makes a pivotal contribution to the individuals development.
In virtue of the structure of the process of identifying-with, certain
emotions entail an expectation and/or experience of otherness (a central
tenet of post-Freudian psychoanalytic thinking). This is foundational for
social experience and at the same time sets the stage for social
experience to shape the self. Identifying-with serves as a mechanism for
the enrichment and development of the individual through his/her
engagements with other people. What results is a mind that is composed
of parts of the self in various states of relatedness to each other and to
various degrees felt to be central to or alienated from the self.
Identifying-with has cognitive, affective, and motivational aspects
(Hobson, 2008). To identify with someone else is to be engaged with
them affectively, it is to be motivated to feel and behave in certain ways,
and it is to apply cognitive categories of relevant kinds. The earliest
forms of identification (or one might say, the structures of self-other
relatedness that provide the basis for (p.189) identification proper)
appear early in the first year of life. The manifestations are the uniquely
human forms of sharing evident in typically developing infants from
around two months of age. Typically developing two-month-old infants
appear not only to share affectively charged exchanges with their
caregivers (Trevarthen, 1979), but also to be upset by disruption in the
interactions. A prime example is when a caregiver adopts a still face
(Tronick, Als, Adamson, Wise, & Brazelton,1978)and we have seen
two-month-olds trying to reinstate a pleasureable to-and-fro with their
still-faced mothers. On the other hand, of course, we should not suppose
that the infants experience another person in the way that we do.
Rather, it is the case for infants as well as adults that certain states of
mind entail that one registers an embodied other who plays an integral
role in making that state of mind what it is. When we witness two-
month-olds sharing pleasure in face-to-face interaction with their
mothers and then either intermittently averting their gaze or making
bids for re-engagement when the mothers assume a blank face (see
Hobson,2002/4 for further details), the other is essential to a
description of what the infants are experiencing.
Then more explicit forms of identifying-with become apparent later in
the first year, when infants are moved to adopt the attitudes of another
person toward a shared world. Examples are instances of social
referencing, when infants attitudes to objects and events may change in
accordance with their perception of other peoples attitudes to those
same objects and events (e.g., Sorce, Emde, Campos, & Klinnert, 1985),
or certain varieties of joint attention and imitation (Trevarthen &
Hubley, 1978, for vivid illustrations, and Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow,
Wagner, & Chapman, 1992, for subsequent developments in empathy
over the second year). It is possible, albeit hazardous, to see phenomena
such as joint attention and social referencing as amounting to a form of
understanding, but it is important not to suppose one can speak of the
infant knowing that someone else has such-and-such a take on the
world. Rather, as John Campbell (2005, p. 288) has expressed the
matter, On a relational view, joint attention is a primitive phenomenon
of consciousness. Just as the object you see can be a constituent of your
experience, so too it can be a constituent of your experience that the
other person is, with you, jointly attending to the object. In other
words, we are still in the realm of what is structured in the givenness of
experience, rather than what is built up out of component
understandings. Or to put this differently: a part of what goes into
childrens (and our) understanding of persons is what they already
experience as sharing with persons, including what they experience as
sharing in relation to a world out there. Finally, there are further
versions of identifying-with that develop later in life, for instance when a
child identifies with a parent or when someone identifies with a
religious group.
(p.190) Two observations, one from developmental psychopathology
and one from neuroscience, are pertinent here. First, it is commonplace
to find young children acting out scenarios in their symbolic play. When
the scenarios involve pretend people, the figures are often given roles in
interaction with each other. Not infrequently, the roles have personal
significance for the child. For instance, if the child has been told off by a
parentand what one might have seen at the actual telling-off was an
upset child (although more accurately, a child-upset-by-being-told-off-
by-a-parent)what one may observe subsequently is the child re-
enacting boththe figure of the scolding parent and the figure of the
upset child. The self-other structure of the original experience becomes
unpacked, as it were, in the replaying of events. Such patterns of
transgenerational identification can be a potent source of
psychopathology, for example when abused children become abusers.
Then from the field of neuroscience there is evidence for something like
resonance of action-readiness and/or feelings between one individual
and another (e.g., as considered by Decety & Chaminade, 2003)and
also provisional evidence that such neurofunctional mirroring is
relatively absent among individuals with autism and/or Asperger
syndrome (e.g., Dapretto, Davies, Pfeifer, Scott, & Sigman, 2006;
Oberman, Hubbard, McCleery, Altschuler, Ramachandran, & Pineda,
2005; but see Southgate & Hamilton, 2008). Although such evidence
supports the notion that there is transmission or communication of at
least certain features of psychological states from one person and
another, one needs to be circumspect about using such terms as
mirroring or simulating, when mirroring is so inexact a metaphor for
the complex processes of identifying-with.

Wrap-Up
It may be appropriate to conclude with some final reflections on where
the present account is situated within current philosophical debate on
the nature of and basis for interpersonal understanding. It diverges in
very many respects from theory theory attempts to explain basic
mechanisms of interpersonal understanding (e.g., Hobson, 1993b). This
is notwithstanding that mental concepts and self-reflective forms of
role-taking feature in developmentally elaborated forms of mind-
reading. Perhaps the most important point is that quintessentially
(although not exclusively), early forms of identifying-with are
perceptually grounded emotional processes that are necessary for, rather
than dependent upon, the acquisition of concepts of persons-with-
minds.
The present approach also eschews ideas that appear in versions of
simulation theory. For example, identifying-with does not work from an
egocentric (p.191) stance. Rather, it is a process that structures
interpersonal engagement. Self/other-awareness and understanding are
constructed on the basis of emotionally configured intersubjective
experience. Therefore it is not the case that in the early phases of life, a
child uses him- or herself as a model for understanding someone else.
Simulationist accounts tend to underestimate how much development
in self-awareness and conceptual ability needs to have taken place
before a child could use him-/herself as a model for anything. Second,
identifying-with does not depend upon imagination, in any of the usual
senses of that term. On the contrary, imaginative role-taking becomes
possible on the basis of infants experiencing specific forms of
interpersonally grounded shift in attitude toward the world though their
affectively configured perception of and alignment with the attitudes of
others.
We should add that an account in terms of identifying-with alters the
prominence given to a range of self-other and person-world relations in
our explanation of what it means to understand oneself and others, and
how we come to such understanding. For example, consider a very
young childs ability to perceive and respond to what one might call a
possessive or acquisitive attitude in someone else. Around the second
birthday, a child adopts the adults expression Mine! by identifying
with the attitude this expresses when used by an adult or older sibling
(Charney, 1980). Is not this, too, of great significance for our grasp of
what it means to be a self with a set of person-anchored desires toward
and beliefs about the world?
There are very many sorts of emotion, a fact that is obscured only by
our conventional habits of thinking in terms of abstracted feelings such
as those of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust (to
mention only the supposedly basic emotions). To be happy-with-
someone-who-is-talking-with-oneself is not the same mental state as to
be happy-with-someone-who-is-greeting-oneself, never mind the same
as happy-with-someone-who-is-outside-ones-perceptual-field, or even
happy-with-a-good-meal. To be angry with someone who has just
expressed an insult is not the same mental state as to be angry with
someone who has forgotten ones birthday, never mind angry with
someone who has abandoned one, or even angry with a broken-down
car. And so on, ad infinitum. Such affective states are not only relational,
they also have specificity in relation to the identity and state of the
object of the relation (that is, how the object of the intentional state is
experienced). Again to cite Goldie (2000, p. 191), when one is in a
confrontational interaction, one may very clearly recognize anothers
emotion, yet it would be absurd to presume that one has the same
emotion as the other person. If one feels rage-in-relation-to-the-
others dismissiveness, then ones mental state is not the same as that
of the other, but it does encompass ones own version of the others
mental state. This is even true for sharing, when it is only in a (p.192)
special sense that one should speak of ones own state being the same as
that of the other.
In conclusion, then, we see empathy as one among a range of states
structured by the process of identifying-with the attitudes of another
person. The case of autism helps us to see what happens when this
structuring of social experience is limited or absent. In particular, a
limited quality of other-person-centeredness is revealed not only in a
restriction in the organization of affected individuals feelings, thoughts,
and actions toward others when it comes to such states as empathy,
concern, and guilt, but also in diminished role-taking and flexibility in
thinking, language, and imagination. This is not to say that individuals
with autism are without any capacity to identify-with. Nor is it to claim
that without such a process, all manifestations of empathy, guilt, and so
on, never mind flexibility in thinking, are impossible. Our claim is that
identifying-with gives a special quality and depth to these modes of
psychological functioning and to the moral stance to which they make a
central contribution.
Empathy in Other Apes
Kristin Andrews
Lori Gruen
1. Introduction
Aldrin was a sickly little fellow and didnt play with the others very
much. In fact, he usually didnt do much besides sit next to his
babysitter and hug her leg. But one day a terrifying turtle appeared, and
he was motivated to climb high in a tree to escape the horror. Later that
day when it was time to head back to camp, the babysitters realized that
Aldrin wasnt with them. They never saw him come down from the tree.
Then the babysitters noticed that Ceceb, the leader of the group of
youngsters, wasnt around either. When they went back to where the
turtle had been, they found Aldrin and Ceceb perched high in different
trees. Cecebs tree was closest to the path, and he looked back at Aldrin,
caught his eye, and then moved on to the next tree. Aldrin followed
Ceceb from tree to tree until they reached the path back to camp.
Though Ceceb had been looking back at Aldrin from time to time, when
he got down to the ground he just scampered away, joining the rest of
the group, with Aldrin following.
Hearing this story, one might be inclined to talk about Aldrins fear,
Cecebs understanding of Aldrins emotional state, and his desire to help.
It would not be unusual to think that Ceceb was responding
sympathetically to Aldrin, understanding that he was afraid and trying to
calm him. Perhaps one might suspect that Cecebs sympathetic response
was caused by an empathic reaction (p.194) to Aldrins plight. Further,
one might dramatize the story by describing Ceceb as playing the role of
the policeman who is trying to keep the peace and make sure everyone is
doing OK. As juvenile rehabilitant orangutans, however, Ceceb isnt the
kind of creature to whom these ideas are generally applied. If he were
human, there may be little protest. However, the cognitive requirements
for empathy, sympathy, and grasping social norms are not generally
thought to be possessed by nonhuman animals.
A number of scholars have offered behavioral and physiological
arguments in favor of the existence of empathy in other species (see
Bekoff & Pierce 2009, Flack & de Waal 2000, Plutchik 1987). While the
evidence is compelling, claims about empathy in nonhuman apes face
two different challenges. The first challenge comes from a set of
empirical findings that suggest great apes are not able to think about
others beliefs. The argument here is based on a view that empathy is
associated with folk psychological understanding of others mental
states, or mindreading, and the existence of mindreading among the
other apes is a matter of some dispute. The second worry comes from a
host of recent experiments suggesting that nonhuman great ape
communities lack certain social norms that we might expect empathic
creatures to have, namely cooperation norms, norms of fairness, and
punishment in response to violations of norms (especially third-party
punishment). If apes are empathetic, yet they do not use this capacity to
help or punish, what is the role of empathy? We think that both these
challenges can be answered by getting clearer about what empathy is
and how it functions as well as by considering the nature of empathic
societies. We also believe that this analysis will clarify the relationship
between being empathetic and being ethical.

2. Varieties of Empathy
Both the concept of empathy and the phenomenon have been
understood in many different, often contradictory, ways, and this makes
it particularly tricky to determine what is being claimed when someone
says that other apes are or are not empathetic. In everyday use, empathy
is usually thought to be connected with ethical perceptions and
behavior. An empathetic person is a good person, someone with
qualities and virtues that are to be praised. One reason why there is
skepticism about whether apes or other animals engage in empathy is
because it is hard to understand the idea that animals have morality.
There is a growing acceptance of the idea that they may have what de
Waal has called the building blocks of morality, which includes
empathy as well as reciprocity, conflict resolution, a sense of fairness,
and cooperation, but perhaps not full blown ethical agency (de Waal,
2006).
(p.195) In the psychological literature, empathy is alternatively used to
mean a state of feeling what another person or being is feeling (an
affective state that may or may not require cognition), knowing what
another person or being is feeling (an epistemic state that involves
mindreading or metacognition), or responding compassionately to
anothers distress (perception/action state that is often associated with
ethical engagement) (Levenson and Ruef, 1992, 234). The
phenomenological and affective states do not necessarily require
cognition. The epistemic state requires both phenomenological
experience and other affective mental states. Responding
compassionately, caring for and about, or engaging in what one of us
calls entangled empathy (Gruen 2012, 2013) requires both cognitive and
affective states, but not necessarily the same sorts of states that are
associated with the other types of empathy. But all of these types of
empathic experiences involve the transfer of emotion, and this transfer
occurs in a variety of ways.
The most basic form of empathy, usually called emotional contagion or
affective resonance, involves a spontaneous response to the emotions of
another. Anyone who has lived with dogs will be familiar with this
phenomenon. Dogs are emotional spongesthey often become stressed
when their person is stressed, sad when their person is sad, joyful when
their person is joyful. Infants and small children also regularly engage in
these spontaneous reactions. Emotional contagion or affective
resonance is a kind of mimicry of the individual(s) in ones immediate
environment and does not require any developed cognitive capacities.
This very basic type of empathy involves the direct perception of the
emotions of others and automatically triggers or activates the same
emotion in the perceiver, without any intervening labeling, associative,
or cognitive perspective-taking processes. (Lipps 1903b) And in the
majority of such cases, this initial response seems unavoidable.
With the more automatic forms of empathy, the empathizer isnt
distinguishing his or her own feelings or mental states more generally
from those of another. In fact, an awareness of this distinction in agency
may not yet have developed and perhaps never will. And in cases where
such awareness already exists, occurrent recognition of the others
individuality may interfere with the emotional sharing, as between a
mother and infant or in a freshly declared love relationship. Some
theorists have limited their understanding of empathy to just these sorts
of experiences and from that point of view it is difficult to see what role,
if any, empathy that involves fellow feeling in which the agent loses
herself in the emotions of another should play in an account of ethical
engagement.
There are also types of empathy that rely on more complex cognitive
capacities. One sort of cognitive empathy involves taking the perspective
of another in order to understand what that other is experiencing and
making decisions about what to do in light of what the other is
experiencing. This sort (p.196) of empathy generally requires
mindreading or metacognition, and is what the psychologist William
Ickes (1993) calls empathic accuracy. We will discus the conflicting
evidence about metacognition in apes in Section 4 below. The other sort
of empathy is entangled empathy that involves being able to understand
and respond to anothers needs, interests, desires, vulnerabilities, and
perspectives not as if they are or should be the same as ones own. It
involves a reaction to anothers experience and a judgment to act in
response. This latter form of empathy has a clearer connection to ethics,
although here too there is disagreement (Prinz, 2011a, 2011b).

3. Functions of Empathy
Among empathys functions is to better understand the individuals in
ones societyto know what they want and why they want it. There has
been great interest in the evolution of this ability as an explanation for
cognitive differences across species that led to the development of the
Social Intelligence Hypothesis (SIH). Most generally, this hypothesis
suggests that social animals evolved a greater cognitive complexity
because of the need to interact with a great number of autonomous
agents. Apes and monkeys (as well as the social carnivores, birds such as
the corvids, and marine mammals such as the bottlenose dolphin) live in
intricate social groups that require substantial cognitive commitment;
they must be able to recognize individuals (visually, aurally, and perhaps
via other modalities as well), they must keep track of kin relations
(especially in matrilineal species such as baboons), they must keep track
of dominance relations and alliances, plus they must be sensitive to
possible defections. They must be able to remember who did what to
whom when, and who should care about it. In addition, they must decide
what to do in the face of such actions and make judgments about
whether they should, for example, challenge a dominant, join a coup, or
court the dominants mate. They must decide when to let others know
they have found food and when to keep it for themselves. The SIH is
premised on the theory that sophisticated cognition must be adaptive
given the high costs associated with developing a large brain. Evolution
does not optimize, and creatures certainly shouldnt be expected to be
cleverer than they need to be. From this it follows that primates
developed sophisticated cognitive abilities for some function.
There are two approaches to this hypothesis. According to Machiavellian
versions of the hypothesis (Humphrey1976, 1978; Byrne & Whiten
1988), the ability to understand other minds arose in order to come out
on top in a cutthroat environment of scarce resources. By understanding
what others believe and what they want, and by being able to manipulate
others beliefs or change (p.197) their desires, one can steer
competitors away. The Machiavellian perspective emphasizes the
importance of making predictions in order to thrive in this competitive
environment. For example, if two individuals both want a food item, and
there isnt enough to share, the individual who can predict that an
intervention will lead the competitor away from the food will be the one
who gains the food. Given the fiercely competitive primate social
environment, making better predictions of behavior was instrumental
for gaining greater resources; better predictions were used to better
manipulate others behavior. As individuals gain a more sophisticated
theory of social action and greater predictive success, they up the stakes
for other members of their community, thus creating an evolutionary
arms race. Both active lies and withholding information such as food
alarm cries are examples of Machiavellian social intelligence.
The other version of the social intelligence hypothesis was introduced by
primatologist Allison Jolly (1966). Based on her expertise in lemur
behavior, Jolly suggests that cooperative social learning rather than
fierce social competition explains why social animals need greater
cognitive complexity. Social learning is a nonpedagogical method of
learning, which requires that a demonstrator tolerates the close
observation of the learner, and in many cases the learner gains some of
the benefits of the behavior being demonstrated. For example, in
orangutan food processing the mother will allow her infant to peer at
her complex manipulation of a ginger leaf or termite nest, and she will
allow her offspring to take pieces of processed food to eat. While this
sort of learning doesnt involve active teaching, it does require acting
differently toward individuals with differing abilities and responding
appropriately to different individuals depending on their current skill
levels.
We think that Jollys version of the hypothesis is more plausible for a
number of reasons. One of us has argued that the kind of predictions
emphasized by the Machiavellian Intelligence version of the social
intelligence hypothesis could be made without understanding the
content of other minds and without feeling what others feel (Andrews
2012). In addition, as researchers turn to examine cultural differences
between communities of a species, we are finding that social learning is
an essential part of the lives of social animals. Indeed, when we compare
wild apes with captive or rehabilitant apes, we see that the lack of social
learning opportunities among such individuals have led to harm for the
individuals and the new groups, leading to problems such as an inability
to properly care for offspring (rehabilitant orangutan mothers who
inadvertently drown their infants when crossing through streams, for
example) and inability to find nutritious food to eat. Further, the
traditions of ape societies such as orangutan habitual routes appear to
be learned by the infants as they are carried on their mothers backs;
juveniles have been observed to begin leading the way on habitual
routes and waiting for mother at the next stop on (p.198) the path
(Bebko 2013). Social learning leads to the development of cultural
behavior, defined as a behavior that is transmitted repeatedly until it
becomes widespread through a population (Whiten et al. 1999). A new
behavior may be introduced to the communitys behavioral repertoire by
an immigrant or by a community member who innovated the behavior.
Innovation is defined as the process that generates in an individual a
novel learned behavior that is not simply a consequence of social
learning or environmental induction (Ramsey, Bastian, & van Schaik
2007, 395; see also Reader & Laland 2003). Innovations are beneficial
behaviors, and as they spread through a community they make life
better for the individuals.
The way innovations or other learned behaviors spread through a
community is not unlike how some hunter-gatherer human adults pass
on their social knowledge. A recent ethnographic survey of learning in
hunter-gatherer societies concludes that [t]he sources discussed here
suggest that a range of learning processes are involved in acquiring
hunting skills, and that teaching and demonstration play a limited role
(MacDonald 2007, 398). In hunter-gatherer societies, facilitative
teaching is the norm, examples of which include allowing young
children to accompany adult experts on hunting trips or to play with the
adults tools or weapons at home.
Infant and juvenile nonhuman apes have much to learn from their
mothers as well (McGrew 1992). Much of this learning occurs via
facilitative teaching, as described by MacDonald, but there are also
reports of active teaching among chimpanzees. At the Fongoli research
site in Senegal, chimpanzees make a variety of sharp stick tools to hunt
small bush babies that can involve up to five steps to construct,
including trimming the tool tip to a point. The chimpanzees prepare the
tools, take them to a particular area, and then jab them forcefully into
tree hollows where the small primate prey nests. Pruetz has observed
what appeared to be a mother teaching the tool-making and hunting
techniques to infants not only by modeling the tool-making behavior but
also by physically correcting the youngsters tool (Pruetz & Bertolani
2007). In addition, observations of the chimpanzees of the Ta Forest in
Cte DIvoire suggest that they also engage in demonstration teaching
(Boesch 1991, 1993). An adult female named Ricci observed her daughter
Nina trying unsuccessfully to crack nuts with a stone hammer. Ricci
approached Nina, who immediately handed her mother the stone. With
Nina watching closely, Ricci turned the odd-shaped stone to its best
position for cracking the nut in a very slow and deliberate fashion. Then
Ricci cracked ten nuts, letting Nina eat almost all of them, dropped the
stone, and left. Nina picked up the stone and held it in the same position
Ricci had.
Teaching by inhibition, or by preventing another individual from acting,
is also apparent among chimpanzees. Wild chimpanzee mothers have
been (p.199) observed to pull their infants away from plants that are
not part of their regular diet (Hiraiwa-Hasegawa 1990). In captive
settings, researchers have observed mothers intervene when their infant
played with unusual and potentially dangerous objects, such as a heavy
metal chain (Hirata2009).
Kim Sterelny (2012) has argued that the complex culture we see in
human societies emerged from the kind of facilitative teaching we think
exists among the great apes, and which MacDonald describes in
contemporary hunter-gatherer societies. While Sterelny doesnt apply
his account to the great apes, we think that much of what he says about
the evolution of human culture through apprenticeship learning can also
be said of the other great apes. According to his apprenticeship learning
model, humans evolved in an environment organized by humans for
learning, and without explicit teaching or any specific cognitive adaption
for teaching humans were able to develop complex culture. Like
meerkats, whose young gradually learn how to kill and eat dangerous
scorpions from adults giving the young dead scorpions first and then
half-killed scorpions next, human experts often prepare gradual learning
steps for apprentices by task decomposition and ordering skill
acquisition (Sterelny, 2012, 35). In great apes societies, as it is with
human children, youngsters are given many opportunities for learning
by adults. MacDonald (2007) points out that in hunter-gatherer
societies, adults are tolerant of children closely looking at their activity
and playing with their tools. The same sort of tolerance has been
reported among chimpanzees and orangutans (see Van Schaik 2003 for a
review).
If were right and Jollys version of the social intelligence hypothesis is
correct, then there is a real relationship between understanding others
and the behaviors associated with different forms of teaching and
learning. We should expect, then, that empathy would have evolved in
order to facilitate teaching and learning and the transmission of social
traditions, which in addition to behaviors such as food processing can
also include behaviors that may be understood as examples of social
norms, such as the prohibition against infanticide in chimpanzee
societies (see Rudolf von Rohr, Burkart, & van Schaik 2011 for a review)
and the assistance male chimpanzees provide to females and children in
crossing roads (Hockings, Anderson, & Matsuzawa 2006) that we will
say more about in Section 5 below.

4. Empathy and Mindreading

Part of what it means to understand others is to see those others as
distinct from ones self and to recognize that the other has thoughts and
idea of his or her own, a capacity that is sometimes referred to as having
a theory of mind. (p.200) Sarah, a chimpanzee, was the original
subject of studies that attempted to determine whether she understood
mental states such as intentions, knowledge, belief, thinking,
guessing, pretending, and liking of others. Sarah was shown a set of
four video-taped recordings of a human facing a problem and the tape
was stopped just before the human was to solve the problem. She was
then presented with photographs, one of which depicted the solution to
the problem. She was asked to pick the photograph that solved the
problem for the human in the video and she passed the test well above
chance levels, which indicated to the authors at the time that she could
impute mental states to herself and to others and thus had a theory of
mind (Premack & Woodruff 1978, 515). While this original study did
not hold up as establishing that there was evidence of a theory of mind
in chimpanzees and was dismissed by one of the authors (Premack
2007; Premack & Premack2003), it led to further attempts to determine
what chimpanzees know about other minds.
At first, the focus was on visual perception, and the results were not
promising. When chimpanzees at other laboratories were tested on a
perspective taking task, they failed miserably (Povinelli & Eddy 1996). It
appeared that no other chimpanzees could pass what are called non-
verbal false belief tests, often used with human children before they
can speak. A test was designed to determine whether chimpanzees
understood that seeing meant knowing. Two humans would stand
outside an enclosure with a desirable food item. One of the humans
would not be able to see the chimpanzee. (Her eyes might be covered;
she would have a bucket over her head; or she would be looking away.)
The other human would be looking right at the chimpanzee. If the
chimpanzee went to the human that could see him and asked for food,
rather than going to the human who could not see him to ask for food,
researchers could conclude that the chimpanzees understood that seeing
was an important part of the way individuals formed mental states. But
the chimpanzees approached the humans randomly in this set of
experiments.
But when chimpanzees were not viewed as hairier, stronger versions of
human children and researchers started to pay attention to chimpanzee
difference, the theory of mind tests could be reformulated. Brian Hare
and his colleagues noticed that chimpanzees did seem to understand
something about the visual perception of other chimpanzees. Hare
created an experiment in which a subordinate chimpanzee and a
dominant chimpanzee were put in competition over food, and showed
that the subordinate would systematically approach the food the
dominant could not see and avoid the food the dominant could see. In a
variation on this theme, a subordinate watched food being hidden that
the dominant could only sometimes see, depending on whether or not
the dominant chimpanzees door was open or closed during the time of
hiding. When the dominant was released, the subordinate would
(p.201) only approach the food that the dominant had not seen being
hidden, even though the dominant could see it now. They concluded,
We now believe that our own and others previous hypotheses to the
effect that chimpanzees do not understand any psychological states at all
were simply too sweeping (Hare et al. 2000; Hare. Call, & Tomasello
2001; Tomasello, Call, & Hare 2003).
There is also evidence that chimpanzees understand goals and
intentionality (Uller 2004; Tomasello & Carpenter 2005; Warneken &
Tomasello 2006). For example, Claudia Uller found that chimpanzees,
like human children (Gergely, Nadasdy, Csibra, & Br 1995), seem to
perceive the behavior of geometric shapes moving in the right way as
intentional (Uller 2004). Just as children do, chimpanzees expect that a
little ball should move directly toward a larger mother ball, rather than
taking the more circumspect path it was previously taking when there
was a barrier to avoid. This behavior led Uller to conclude that
chimpanzees understand agency and saw the little ball as an agent.
Chimpanzees also seem to understand the differences in peoples
intentions. Call and colleagues found that chimpanzees are more
impatient with humans who are unwilling to give them food compared
with humans who are unable to give them food; they beg more from the
capable person who is unwilling than they beg from the person who is
unable to access the visible food, and they get more upset with people
who are unwilling (Call, Hare, Carpenter, & Tomasello 2004).
Chimpanzees also are able to identify a humans goal and will
spontaneously help a friendly human achieve his goal. While engaged in
what appeared to be informal social interactions with the experimenter,
the young chimpanzees were tested on their ability to respond to a
nonverbal request for help. For example, when the experimenter was
using a sponge to clean a table and dropped the sponge onto the floor,
the chimpanzee he was interacting with responded to his gestural
request to retrieve the sponge by picking it up and handing it to him
(Warneken & Tomasello 2006).
Apes understanding of intentionality has also been investigated by
looking at contingent responsivity. For example, a chimpanzee named
Cassie responded differently when being imitated by his caregiver than
he did when his caregiver engaged in non-imitative behavior (Nielsen,
Collier-Baker, Davis, & Suddendorf 2005). Like human infants, Cassie
would systematically vary his behavior while closely watching the
imitator. Nielsen and colleagues describe one bout of behavior while
Cassie was being imitated: Cassie poked his finger out of the cage,
wiped the ground in front of him, picked up a piece of straw and placed it
in his mouth, pressed his mouth to the cage, then poked his finger out of
the cage again (Nielsen, Collier-Baker, Davis, & Suddendorf 2005, 34).
Such repetitive sequences were the norm when Cassie was being
imitated, but not when the caregiver engaged in non-imitative behavior
or (p.202) no behavior at all. Cassies response demonstrates that he
was aware that his caregiver was acting purposefully, further evidence
that the chimpanzee has a notion of agency.
Chimpanzees also seem to recognize the emotional expressions of other
chimpanzees (Parr 2001). In an experimental study on captive
chimpanzees, chimpanzees were shown videotapes of other
chimpanzees being injured as part of routine veterinarian procedures
that the subjects themselves had previously been exposed to (such as
getting an injection or being darted). After watching the video, the
chimpanzee subjects were given the opportunity to use a joystick to
match the scene with photographs of different chimpanzees displaying
five different facial expressions: a play face, a fear grimace, a screaming
face, a pant-hoot, or a neutral face. The chimpanzee subjects were
experts at matching the painful videos with the photographs of
chimpanzees expressing a fear grimace or screaming. When the
chimpanzees were shown positive images of fun things, such as
desirable food, the chimpanzees matched those scenes to positive facial
expressionsthe play face.
While there is evidence that chimpanzees understand quite a bit about
others mental states, are able to distinguish intentional agents from the
nonintentional objects in the world, are able to understand the visual
perspective of others, and are able to respond appropriately to others
goals, intentions, and emotions, there is currently little evidence that the
great apes are forming beliefs about the beliefs of others. But there is
evidence that they can think about others emotions, intentions, and
even personality traits (Subiaul, Vonk, Okamoto-Barth, & Barth 2008).
It would be wrong to infer from that lack of evidence that apes read
minds that there is no evidence of cognitive empathy in great apes.
Cognitive empathy and perspective taking involves much more than
understanding the content of others beliefs. It just as importantly
considers others physical or social situation, their capability, their
emotions, and their differing goals. Being able to determine such things
about others provides the elements required for entangled empathy,
including the ability to understand and respond to anothers needs,
interests, goals, strengths, and weaknesses. It requires seeing others as
somewhat different from oneself, and from one another, and we see
evidence of that among chimpanzees and the other great apes.

5. Empathy and Social Norms among Apes

In addition to the evidence that other apes can understand some mental
states in others, and that they can identify others goals, intentions, and
interests, there is a growing body of literature that supports the view
that cooperation (p.203) and sanction occur among relatively large
groups of chimpanzees who are apparently genetically unrelated
(individuals that are not direct kin). In natural settings where
populations are not significantly threatened, chimpanzees live in fission-
fusion societies in which their smaller, tighter knit groups of between
four to ten come together with the larger community of approximately
one hundred individuals on a fairly regular, although not day-to-day,
basis. The ability to share resources, exchange information, and to
manage social interactions in such a large group would best be
facilitated through adherence to some sort of norms, particularly with a
species as volatile as chimpanzees. The complex behaviors exhibited in
these regular meetings would also be best explained by the existence of
norms. Chimpanzees have long-term memory; they are socially tolerant
and intelligent; they have quite flexible social repertoires; they have
complex communicative abilities; they respond to the emotions of
others; they understand the consequences of their and others actions;
and there is at least some evidence that they are able to inhibit their
behaviors. They also engage in complex behaviors that researchers have
variously described as fairness, other-regarding behavior, inequity
tolerance, punishment or sanction, targeted helping, cooperation,
and retaliation.
For example, in Bossou, chimpanzees are occasionally observed crossing
roads that intersect with their territories. One of the roads is busy with
traffic, the other is mostly a pedestrian route, but both are dangerous to
the chimpanzees. On video recordings of chimpanzee behavior at the
crossings, adult males were found to take up forward and rear positions,
with adult females and young occupying the more protected middle
positions. The positioning of dominant and bolder individuals, in
particular the alpha male, was found to change depending on both the
degree of risk and number of adult males present. Researchers
suggested that cooperative action in the higher risk situation was
probably aimed at maximizing group protection. This sort of risk taking
for the sake of others is also often observed in male patrols of territorial
boundaries in other parts of Africa. In these instances, a bold male, who
may or may not be the alpha of the group, together with others with
whom he has an alliance, begin a patrol with the goal of potential food
rewards as well as protecting the group from neighboring threats.
(Hockings, Anderson, & Matsuzawa 2006)
Across different chimpanzee communities researchers have observed
that infants enjoy a special status in the community and are tolerated to
a much greater degree than are juveniles or adults (as discussed in
Rudolf von Rohr, Burkart, & van Schaik 2011). Adults, including alpha
males, are extremely tolerant of infants climbing over them and even
stealing their food or tools, and adults have been observed to self-
handicap when playing with infants. However, from time to time
infanticide does occur among chimpanzee communities,
(p.204) though it is rare; for example, in one community of Gombe
chimpanzees, over a period of 40 years only 5 out of 112 infants were the
victim of infanticide from a group member (Murray, Wroblewski, &
Pusey 2007). Those who have observed intragroup infanticide report
that the females respond with massive reactions, including screaming,
barking, and risky attempts to intervene.
There is a unique case in Senegal in which an infant chimpanzee who
had been the victim of poaching was ultimately retrieved from the
poachers by the research team. The team left the infant in a burlap sack
close to the chimpanzee group and an adolescent male helped return the
infant to the mother. The mother was injured in the human attack and
when she would fall behind the group as they were travelling, the
unrelated adolescent male assisted her by carrying the infant. According
to Pruetz, this targeted helping behavior could not be explained by
reference to self-interest and may best be explained as empathetic
action. The male recognized the difficulties the mother was experiencing
keeping up with the group while carrying her infant as well as her need
for help during group travel (Pruetz 2011).
There is some evidence of cooperation and sanction in experimental
studies with captive chimpanzees as well. Formal experiments have
indicated willingness to cooperate with a social partner in order to gain
food to be shared (Hirata & Fuwa 2007), spontaneous helping behavior
when engaged with a human caregiver (Warneken, Hare, Melis, Hanus,
& Tomasello 2007), and responses to requests for help from another
chimpanzee even when there is no direct benefit to self (Yamamoto,
Humle, & Tanaka 2009). Chimpanzees have also demonstrated that they
can strategically share the appropriate tool with another chimpanzee in a
task that requires two chimpanzees to coordinate the use of different
tools in order to gain access to food (Melis & Tomasello 2013).
However, the case isnt as clear as we have been presenting it. Both the
experimental studies and the field observations are subject to
interpretations that must be considered. In addition, there are several
studies that suggest to some that chimpanzees do not have social norms
that permit cooperative behavior.
The sort of evidence we see in favor of cooperation in great apes, such as
food sharing, might be interpreted in a self-interested way. In one
captive experiment, Frans de Waal and Sarah Brosnan developed a series
of tests to try to analyze food sharing among chimpanzees. They found
that adults were more likely to share food with individuals who had
groomed them earlier in the day. They suggested that the results could
be explained in two ways: the good-mood hypothesis, in which
individuals who have received grooming are in a benevolent mood and
respond by sharing with all individuals or the exchange hypothesis, in
which the individual who has been groomed responds by sharing food
only with the groomer. The data indicated that the sharing was specific
to the previous groomer. The chimpanzees remembered who had
(p.205) performed a service (grooming) and responded to that
individual by sharing food. De Waal and Brosnan also observed that
grooming between individuals who rarely did so was found to have a
greater effect on sharing than grooming between partners who
commonly groomed. Among partnerships in which little grooming was
usually exchanged, there was a more pronounced effect of previous
grooming on subsequent food sharing. They suggest that being groomed
by an individual who doesnt usually groom might be more noticeable
and thus warrant greater response, in the form of food sharing, or it
could be what they call calculated reciprocity (Brosnan & de Waal
2002).
Others have argued that all the evidence of so-called cooperative
behaviors seen among chimpanzees can be explained in self-interested
terms. The tasks in which two chimpanzees have to cooperate to gain
food that is then shared is an obvious case, but even in the tasks when a
partner responds to a request for a tool to help another gain a food
reward, with no reward to himself, might also be explained in terms of
expectations of future help by the partner (Vonk et al. 2008).
In addition, there have been a number of captive experiments that failed
to find social norms like cooperation or fairness among chimpanzees. In
one study, chimpanzees failed to take advantage of a situation to offer
food to a companion at no cost to self (Silk et al. 2005). The chimpanzee
was given two ropes to pull; each would deliver food to oneself.
However, one of the ropes also delivered food to a chimpanzee in the
cage next door. Chimpanzees randomly pulled the ropes to deliver food
to self, seemingly uninterested in whether the visible chimpanzee next
door received any food. In addition, in a chimpanzee version of the
ultimatum game in which a chimpanzee is given a choice between
making one of two offers, which the other chimpanzee can accept or
reject, the chimpanzees accepted all offers, while humans tend to reject
unfair offers thereby punishing the provider (Jensen, Call, & Tomasello
2007a). This suggests to the authors that chimpanzees are not
concerned with fairness. Finally, while there is evidence that
chimpanzees will punish others who directly target them (Jenson, Call,
& Tomasello 2007b), researchers failed to find that chimpanzees will
engage in third-party punishment in an experimental setting (Riedl
Jensen, Call, & Tomasello 2012).
But the negative results and the noncooperative interpretations of the
positive results shouldnt lead one to reject the notion that there are
social norms among chimpanzees because there are alternative
explanations for the negative results as well. Chimpanzees may have
failed to pull a rope that supplied food to a neighboring chimpanzee
because they were so excited by the food they failed to notice the
consequences their action had on their neighbor (Warneken &
Tomasello 2006). Alternatively, they may have failed to offer assistance
to the neighbor because they were not particularly interested in that
(p.206) individual. All the experimental studies fail to report the
quality of relationship between the individuals who are asked to
cooperate. Certainly among humans the quality of relationships is a
salient variable in determining when to apply human social norms of
fairness and cooperation. It is fair to share foods with friends and family,
but not unfair to fail to share food with the stranger sitting next to you
on the bus (at least in North America). Indeed, when the quality of
relationships are taken into account, we see that the willingness to
exchange food for grooming with particular individuals may be less of a
calculated reciprocity than it is an instance of nurturing existing social
relationships and creating new ones. In a recent study that found a
positive relationship between grooming and food sharing, the authors
also calculated a relationship score for the dyads. They found that short-
term contingencies disappeared when considering long-term
relationships, which significantly predict the willingness to share food
and engage in grooming (Jaeggi, de Groot, Stevens, & van Schaik 2013).
This consideration reminds us that fairness and cooperation are not
relationship-neutral social norms for humans either. Finally, in a more
recent study looking at chimpanzee performance on the ultimatum
game, researchers found that in the iterated version of the game,
chimpanzees will start out by making selfish offers, but upon verbal
protest of the partner they shift to making the fair offer (Proctor,
Williamson, de Waal, &. Brosnan 2013).
Any study of social norms in chimpanzees must take more seriously two
variables: the relationship between interacting individuals and the
resource in question. We know that chimpanzees recognize the
relationships between individuals. Group members know the
relationships between mother and infant and relationships between
males who form a coalition. They can identify familiar individuals,
individuals from rival groups, and unknown individuals. In experimental
set ups they make choices based on individual differences; chimpanzees
prefer to cooperate with partners who share rewards more equitably
(Melis, Hare, & Tomasello 2009), and they know which partners will
best help them to achieve the task at hand (Melis, Hare, & Tomasello
2006). And we know that among humans the resource at question is a
relevant variable that can help to predict whether someone will share a
resource. Humans have social norms of fairness even though they do
not share equal amounts of every resource with every individual. We
may share a bag of chips with a colleague sitting next to us on the bus,
but we might not share them with a stranger. And when we consider
different resources, things change; we may not offer that same colleague
half our vegemite sandwich or a drink from our water bottle. As the
specific content of social norms differ across human cultures, we should
expect them to differ among different species as well.

(p.207) 6. Empathy and Ethics

The nature of social relationships has not often been discussed in
studies of chimpanzee behavior, and the importance of social
relationships is not a central feature of most theories of human
morality. Of course, that we are constantly navigating such relationships
is why we need ethicssocial living involves conflicts and ethics is a way
of justifying resolutions to those conflicts. But the nature of these
relationships is generally not thought to be relevant. Within ethical
theory, there is a long tradition of seeking to overcome the partiality of
social relationship in order to justify ethical behavior. The ethical point
of view, as it is sometimes put, is associated with the point of view of
the universe or more helpfully, a view that is not partial to any
particular group or set of individuals. Theories that privilege or favor the
needs, interests, attitudes, or practices of members of ones own family,
friends, nation, gender, race, or ethnicity over others generally are not
considered moral theories at all.
The ability to reason plays a central role in achieving this impartial point
of view. As Peter Singer has noted:
Reason makes it possible . . . to see that I am just one among others,
with interests and desires like others. I have a personal perspective
on the world . . . but reason enables me to see that others have
similarly subjective perspectives, and that from the point of view of
the universe my perspective is no more privileged than theirs. Thus
my ability to reason shows me the possibility of detaching myself
 from my own perspective, and shows me what the universe might
look like if I had no personal perspective. (Singer, 1993, 229)
So the standard view suggests that in order for one to behave ethically
one must have the reasoning capacity to detach from particular interests
and particular relationships, as well as ones immediate desires and
inklings, and once we do that we can work out what to do from an
ethical perspective. The partial attitudes and relationships that we have
arent good or bad but rather are the sorts of things that cannot serve
as the basis for moral judgments and behaviors.
This standard view informs the spectatorial nature of cognitive empathy,
which requires mindreading and the accurate attribution of beliefs and
desires to another. When we step back from our engaged interactions
with others as whole persons with relationships, past histories,
personalities, social roles, emotions, and moods and take others instead
as bags of skin filled with beliefs and desires, we are adopting the sort of
impartiality and intersubstitutability championed by the standard view,
aiming for objectivity and accuracy. But (p.208) we are missing the
whole story, and missing the entangled nature of empathy, when we
strip away the context in which the subject forms beliefs and desires.
Because these partial attitudes and our social situatedness, features of
our human experiences that other apes also experience, are precisely
what are supposed to be overcome when we are acting ethically, it
appears that the most we can say is that our social natures are
precursors or building blocks to full-blown ethics (de Waal,2006).
Apes may be empathetic in some of the ways we have discussed here,
but behaving empathetically isnt the same as acting ethically. The
standard view elevates the capacities thought to be truly ethical and
finds that they belong to socially detached, unencumbered, rational
deliberators.
But this view assumes that it is possible to step outside of the social or
to detach from the experiences of our particular embodiments and deny
that we are entangled with other beings, as well as the practices and the
ways of making meaning that we not only share with others but that
make us who we are (Meyers 2004). However, ethical problems may
only become visible as problems in a social context and some, perhaps
most, solutions only make sense in the process of interacting with the
parties to the conflict. As Shirley Strum notes in her discussion of
baboon social contracts, problems are solved in social interaction before
being appropriated by individuals; the flow of cognitive solutions goes
from the social to the individual rather than the other way around
(Strum 2008).
Adoption of the standard view informs the empirical work that has been
done to try to generate evidence for or against the claim that other apes
are empathetic, are capable of understanding the interests and
perspectives of others, or behave according to social norms. When one
assumes that we can detach ourselves from our specific relationships,
attitudes, and beliefs, we overlook the relationship between
experimenter and subject and the effect the quality of that relationship
has on research results (Smith 2012). That relationships differ between
researchers and subjects may explain why studies have resulted in
diverging conclusions. By assuming this sort of detachment, there is also
a danger of unwitting anthropomorphism in that the ethical norms that
are being tested are thought to be the same across species and cultures.
Questioning the acceptability of the standard view does not entail the
rejection of meaningful generalization, but rather refocuses inquiry on
the socially and affectively entangled nature of individuals in their
communities.
For example, in recent studies of chimpanzee cooperation, researchers
have chosen testing pairs based on their levels of tolerance for one
another (Melis & Tomasello 2013). By recognizing that the quality of
relationships matters, researchers are already acknowledging that
cooperation as ethical behavior (p.209) is not unrelated to the realities
of situated individuals with different kinds of social connections to one
another.
The focus on empathy as mindreadingthe accurate attribution of
beliefs and desiresis related to the aspect of morality that focuses on
autonomy. This argument is made by Christine Korsgaard, who argues
that since animals cannot mindread, they cannot self-govern, because
they cannot consider their reasons for action and decide whether or not
they are justified (Korsgaard 2006). But Kantian autonomy is just one
form of autonomy (Gruen 2011), and it is not the only piece of the
morality puzzle. Other aspects, such as Shweders Community
dimension of morality (Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, & Park 1997) or
Haidts Care/Harm dimension, which focuses on the ability to feel and
dislike others pain and Fairness/Cheating, which focuses on reciprocal
actions (Haidt & Graham 2007) are largely ignored by the standard view.
Yet it is exactly these dimensions that we find evidence for in nonhuman
ape behavior. It is no surprise that when we focus on the most rarefied
and linguistically mediated form of a behavior we will fail to find it in
other species. Once we are able to look past the most salient examples of
human morality, we find that moral behavior and thought is a thread
that runs through our daily activities, from the micro-ethics involved in
coordinating daily behaviors like driving a car down a crowded street
(Morton 2003), to the sharing of someones joy in getting a new job or a
paper published. If we ignore these sorts of moral actions, we are
overintellectualizing human morality, something the British psychology
C. Lloyd Morgan warned against: To interpret animal behavior one
must learn also to see ones own mentality at levels of development
much lower than ones top-level of reflective self-consciousness. It is not
easy, and savors somewhat of paradox (Morgan 1930, 250).
By also attending to the entangled empathy aspects of morality, we are
embracing the paradox. The nature of particular entanglements and how
and whether empathic responsiveness emerges (or doesnt) within them
is an important area of study, and exploring empathy among other apes
with this framework in mind may lead to insights not just about what
apes can or cant do, but also how humans might rethink empathy and
ethics.
Psychological Altruism, Empathy, and
Offender Rehabilitation
Tony Ward
Russil Durrant
Introduction
The science of offender rehabilitation has come a long way over the last
thirty years or so, and there is now general acceptance of what good
intervention programs for offenders ought to look like (Andrews &
Bonta,2010). Research has helped correctional practitioners and policy
makers to ascertain what type of treatment programs are likely to result
in reduced recidivism rates and which ones they would expect to be
ineffective. For example, a number of well-designed studies have
determined that treatment programs that are cognitive-behavioral in
nature, focus on high risk offenders and characteristics that are
statistically related to reoffending, implemented by qualified and trained
staff, and adhere to explicit and detailed treatment manuals firmly
rooted in research should reduce reoffending rates by at least 10 percent
(Andrews & Bonta, 2010; Andrews, Bonta, & Hoge, 1990).
More specifically, Andrews and Bonta (2010) have formulated a number
of normative principles to guide correctional practice derived from
extensive empirical research. Three of these principles constitute the
core of what is referred to as the Risk-Need-Responsivity model of
offender rehabilitation. The (p.211) principles state that: (1) individuals
who are higher risk should receive more resources (i.e., interventions,
treatment programs) than lower risk individuals; (2) correctional
interventions should target criminogenic needs (dynamic risk factors)
that are causally related to individuals criminal behavior; and (3)
interventions should be tailored andresponsive to individual offenders
learning style, ability, and motivational factors (Andrews & Bonta, 2010;
Andrews, Bonta, & Hoge, 1990).
Generally speaking, treatment programs for specific groups such as sex
and violent offenders have been constructed with these principles in
mind (Laws & Ward, 2011). In a recent review Hanson, Bourgon,
Helmus, and Hodgson (2009) investigated whether the principles of
effective interventionthose of risk, need, and responsivityfor general
offenders (Andrews & Bonta, 2010) also applied to sex offenders. They
found that treated sex offenders had lower reoffending rates (10.9%)
than members of the comparison groups (19.2%). Furthermore,
treatment also reduced the rates of general offending in those
individuals who participated in specialized sexual offending programs
(31.8% vs. 48.3%). Thus, programs that adhered to the principles of risk,
need, and responsivity produced better outcomes than those that did
not.
While the reduction of offending through the use of empirically
validated techniques is an important and socially responsible goal, in our
view it is narrowly conceived and fails to grasp the fundamental nature
of offender behavior change and desistance (Evans, 2012; Laws & Ward,
2011; Ward & Stewart, 2003). Ethical, prudential, and epistemic values
infuse all aspects of correctional assessment, intervention, and follow-
up and are central drivers of change (Ward & Maruna, 2007). Practice
values are reflected in norms that outline obligatory standards or ideals
thought to result in human benefits (or harms) such as wellbeing
enhancement, increased autonomy, and the reduction of suffering. They
inform professionals about the outcomes or experiences they should be
seeking to achieve with clients and which ones they should try to avoid.
In brief, values are evident: (a) in the definitions of risk assessment and
the goal of crime reduction: to assess the probability of harmful
outcomes occurring and to reduce the amount of harm; (b) in
intervention targets such as increased empathy, emotional control, or
social functioning. In fact, empathy work is viewed in the sexual
offending domain as a critical component of the change process because
of the powerful way it impacts on individuals sense of responsibility and
determination to commit themselves to therapy. In our view, in part this
reflects a desire to make amends and to seek redemption; (c) in the
concept of narrative identity that resides at the heart of the change and
desistance process. This is essentially a value-laden idea as it contains
offenders personal ideals and guides self-evaluation; and (d) in every
correctional practitioners professional commitment to specific codes of
practice that (p.212) regulate the ethical, relationship-building, and
knowledge-related aspects of their work.
If you accept these observations, then it is apparent that the process of
successful offender rehabilitation is actually an evaluative and capacity-
building process, and importantly, should be so. The capacity-building
part of correctional interventions draws from empirical research
concerning how best to establish the social and psychological resources
needed to live prosocial and personally meaningful lives. The evaluative
componentinvolves a diverse range of norms stipulating such things as
what constitutes good relationships, non-distorted beliefs and
attitudes, healthy emotional management, appropriate and normal
sexual fantasies and drives, appropriate responsiveness to other peoples
desires and interests, and adaptive problem solving. A crucial aim of all
offender interventions is to strengthen offenders perception of other
peoples mental states, especially their needs, interests, and emotions,
and by doing so, make it less likely they will behave in harmful ways in
the future. This is an emotional/cognitive task as arguably altruistic
actions are reliably generated by sympathetic or empathic affective
states (Batson, 2011). The interest in empathy-related therapeutic work
in treatment programs for groups such as sex offenders is underpinned
by an assumption that empathic responses inhibit aggression and
promote prosocial behavior (Barnett & Mann, 2013; Maibom, 2012a).
In this chapter we briefly examine the concept of empathy and discuss
its application in the domain of sex offending treatment. We conclude
that focusing on empathy change in offenders during treatment is a little
narrow, and a more useful way of considering the interests of other
persons is through the application of the concept of psychological
altruism, and altruism failure. An advantage of viewing therapy through
this multidimensional concept is that it enables practitioners to
appreciate the value-laden nature of all of correctional treatment while
also building in a role for empirical research. Furthermore, the related
notion of altruism failure reminds practitioners that there are a number
of ways that the interests of victims and members of the community can
be disregarded and that a singular focus on remedying empathy deficits
is not the whole story. After outlining Philip Kitchers concept of
psychological altruism we systematically apply it to offender treatment
and demonstrate how therapeutic tasks undertaken represent a way of
forestalling the possibility of altruism failure. We conclude the chapter
with some observations on the implications of structuring treatment
around the concept of psychological altruism (and altruism failure). The
discussion in our chapter centers on sex offenders although the
implications of our analysis apply to all types of offenders. It is simply
that the concepts of empathy and empathy interventions have been well
developed in this field compared to other correctional-practice domains.

(p.213) The Concept of Empathy in the Sexual Offending

Field
The treatment of sex offenders has evolved considerably over the last 30
years and now consists of multiple components, each targeting a
different problem domain and primarily delivered in a group format.
Treatment is typically based around an analysis of individuals offending
patterns and takes a cognitive-behavioral/relapse-prevention
perspective. The major goal is to teach sex offenders the skills to change
the way they think, feel, and act and to use this knowledge to avoid or
escape from future high-risk situations. There are usually discrete
treatment modules devoted to the following problem areas: cognitive
distortions (offense-supportive beliefs and attitudes), deviant sexual
interests, social skill deficits, impaired problem solving, empathy
deficits, intimacy deficits, emotional regulation difficulties, impulsivity,
lifestyle imbalance, and post-offense adjustment or relapse prevention
(Marshall, Marshall, Serran, & Fernandez, 2006). Recent outcome
studies of the effectiveness of treatment are encouraging although there
is no real understanding of why people desist from further offending and
how the various therapy components interact to produce psychological
and behavioral change (Hanson, Bourgon, Helmus, & .Hodgson, 2009;
Lsel, & Schmucker, 2005; Ward & Laws, 2010).
As stated earlier, a key component of most treatment programs around
the world is the empathy module and its constituent therapeutic
strategies. In this module, individuals are typically asked to write victim
autobiographical accounts of their offending, to participate in a role play
of their own victim in a dramatization of the abusive episode, and are
exposed to multimedia narrative accounts of the impact of sexual abuse
on victims and their families (Marshall, Marshall, Serran, & Fernandez,
2006; Pithers, 1999). Practitioners often note the powerful emotional
effects of empathy work on the men they work with, and in our
experience many offenders regard it as a turning point in their lives
(Marshall, Marshall, Serran, & Fernandez, 2006).
But how is empathy conceptualized within the field of sexual offending?
In a useful recent review of cognition, empathy, and sexual offending
Barnett and Mann (2013) point out that treatment programs often
assume the validity of a two-component empathy model and base their
interventions on this perspective. More specifically, it is assumed that
empathy comprises two, related sets of psychological processes:
perspective taking (a cognitive factor) and experiencing an appropriate
emotion when confronted with another persons distress or suffering (an
affective component). While more nuanced models have emerged since
this early theoretical effort, a combination of perspective taking and
affective interventions are evident in most treatment programs. For
example, asking offenders to participate in victim role-plays and to write
(p.214) victim autobiographies seems to be clearly targeting
perspective taking and emotional responsiveness. Subsequent
theoretical innovations such as the models developed by Marshall,
Hudson, Jones, and Fernandez (1995), and Barnett and Mann (2013)
have argued that a greater number of psychological processes are
involved in generating an empathic response. For example, in their
recent theory Barnett and Mann (2013) define empathy as
a cognitive and emotional understanding of another persons
experience, resulting in an emotional response for the observer
which is congruent with a view that others are worthy of
compassion and respect and have intrinsic worth. (p. 23)
They state that offenders display victim empathy when they are able to
accurately identify and understand, free from their own biases what the
person they abused was likely to have experienced during the sexual
assault (p. 23). In essence (and rewording their language slightly),
Barnett and Mann hypothesize that five sets of processes converge to
create an empathic response: (a) the ability to accurately infer what
another person is experiencingperspective taking; (b) the ability to
experience an appropriate emotion when confronted with another
persons distress or pain; (c) the belief that other persons, aside from the
offender, ought to be respected and treated with compassion; (d) the
absence of contextual variables or competing motivational states that
may override the empathic processes and motivations; and (e) the
capacity to modulate any resulting personal distress experienced by the
individual concerned so that his or her empathic responses (likely to be
generated by the first three processes) are not blocked or avoided.
Barnett and Mann are careful to point out the weakness of the research
evidence on empathy, especially the claim that empathy deficits are
causal contributors to the occurrence of sexual crimes. They also think
that the complex and nuanced nature of empathic responses means that
future research will need to be more contextual and researchers should
take greater care in the conceptualization and measurement of empathy,
and in the design of any subsequent treatment initiatives based on this
research. According to Barnett and Mann, at this stage it is far from clear
whether sex offenders display generalized or focal empathy failures (i.e.,
linked to a specific context or person) or whether demonstrated
empathic failures are caused by psychological deficits rather than
reflecting a failure to utilize perfectly adequate empathic capacities in
some contexts. In many respects their comments echo what Maibom
(2012a) says in her excellent paper on the concept of empathy and its
hypothesized role in inhibiting violence. Maibom carefully distinguishes
between a cluster of empathy-related concepts and argues that in order
to avoid conceptual confusion and muddled research (p.215) practice, it
is important when engaging in theorizing and empirical research to be
clear which ones you are referring to. That is, clarify whether you are
talking aboutsympathy (essentially, feeling bad in response to another
persons sufferingyour emotions are directed to that personand
being motivated to help that person in some respect because they are
suffering), perspective taking(essentially, being able to imaginegive an
account ofwhat a person in a particular situation is likely to be
experiencing or be able to imagine yourself in such a situation, and give
an account), emotional contagion(essentially, feeling bad when the
other person feels bad without necessarily knowing that your own
feelings are caused by the others situationyour focus is on your
personal distress not the other persons situation), andempathy
(essentially, when a person feels the same emotion another is
experiencing and where this emotional response is caused by their
perception of what the other person is feeling).
Examining the sexual offending theoretical and empirical research
literature with Maiboms distinctions in mind, it is apparent that they
are rarely observed. It is difficult to know exactly what kind of empathic
phenomenon is being referred to when, for example, Barnett and Mann
state that empathy involves an emotional response that is congruent
with the belief that others are worthy of respect and compassion. It
could be sympathy, contagion, or an empathy response in the narrow
sense of that term. However, for our purpose this terminological
imprecision is not that crucial. What matters for our overall argument is
that (a) there is limited direct evidence that an empathic responseof
any typeinhibits persons from committing sexual offenses, and (b) a
number of factors appear to play a role in creating empathy, including
adherence to moral-status norms. This is not surprising because in our
view what matters from a treatment perspective is that offenders act
toward others in an altruistic manner, rather than that they feel
empathic. Additionally, the trouble with the concept of an empathy
response as used in the correctional field is that empathy tends to be
viewed as either present or absent within an individual, and there is a
failure to make room for the important role of context and moral norms.
First, human beings are not simply empathic (or altruistic) or not; they
tend to exhibit a more fine-grained picture varying along a number of
dimensions (see Kitcher, 2011). Second, as we will argue later in this
chapter, the concept of psychological and behavioral altruism is
underpinned by normative concerns and by virtue of its
multidimensional nature, is responsive to issues of context and scope
not easily handled by the concept of empathy.
Building on the first point, sexual offenders present a somewhat variable
clinical picture when it comes to their interpersonal actions and
responses. First, sometimes the cause of an apparent lack of empathy
and subsequent(p.216) violence appears to be related to the fact that
the circle of persons an individual cares about is far too small and
unreasonably excludes classes of individuals (e.g., adult females or
specific individuals) who are then subject to sexually abusive actions.
Second, on other occasions, offenders only act in caring and altruistic
ways in certain contexts, for example, when they are emotionally stable.
However, if depressed or feeling threatened and vulnerable, the
motivation to commit sexual offenses slowly begins to dominate. Third,
at other times people fail to act in prosocial ways because they lack the
knowledge and skills to accurately infer peoples mental states and
therefore do not know what others are actually experiencing. This makes
it extremely difficult to realign their own desires and preferences to
others in an adaptive way. Fourth, sometimes individuals act in violent
and abusive ways because they are unable to identify the consequences
of their actions for other people. This could reflect a lack of knowledge,
limited problem-solving and inductive cognitive skills, and/or a lack of
interpersonal competence. Finally, it is possible that offenders simply
fail to make sufficient adjustments to other peoples situations on some
occasions. The problem is one of failing to frame the demands of a
situation sufficiently well, and therefore there is a mismatch between
these demands and the motivation, effort, and skills actually employed
(and required).
In our view, researchers and practitioners should be concentrating on
incidents of altruism failure rather than empathy failure. The concept of
altruism (psychological and behavioral), as developed by theorists such
as Kitcher, is richer and provides a more useful way of linking ethical
norms and concern for others to the kinds of psychological and social
interventions employed in treatment programs for sex offenders. The
fact that its stress is on action is also an advantage: it is what people do,
or fail to do, when committing offenses that is of interest to
practitioners.
We argue that all of the treatment modules typically implemented with
sex offenders play a role in addressing the major classes of problems
evident in altruism failure (which includes empathy failure as currently
construed). In our view, the multidimensional, rich account of
psychological altruism created by Philip Kitcher (2010, 2011) has the
conceptual resources to incorporate the contributions that the concept
of empathy and the interventions associated with it play in treatment,
while avoiding its weaknesses.

A Multidimensional Concept of Psychological Altruism

Philip Kitcher (2010, 2011) has recently developed a theory of ethics
based on the assumptions of naturalistic pragmatism. According to this
perspective, (p.217) ethics is a form of social technology that emerged
during the evolution of human beings to stabilize social cooperation and
coordination. He argues that when human beings lived in relatively
small groups cooperation was essential for survival. Foraging for food,
dealing with predators, or simply being faced with the vicissitudes of the
environment and weather meant that groups that were motivated to take
each others interests into account were more likely to survive and
reproduce. Kitcher, along with other evolutionary theorists such as
Tomasello and Boehm (e.g., Boehm, 2012; Tomasello, Melis, Tennie,
Wyman, & Herrman, 2012), points to the crucial role of early Homo
sapiens emotional and cognitive capacities in creating strong social
bonds within groups. However, the problem with relying on
psychological states such as altruistic emotions and social motivations is
that they can be unreliable at times, particularly once the population
grew substantially and human beings started to live in much larger
groups. The cost of altruism failure would be extremely high and most
likely result in significant harm to the interests of group members, and
of the group itself. Kitcher argues that ethical norms were initially
constructed to coordinate the actions of group members and were
arrived at through a process of consultation and group consensus. Over
time these norms were codified into oral language and later in a written
form, which made it easier to transmit them to successive generations,
thus consolidating cultural practices designed to sustain the
group/society. The important point is that according to Kitcher, ethical
norms are essentially social tools that were designed to piggyback on
human beings evolved (natural) cognitive and emotional capacities. The
emergence of ethical norms bestowed an advantage to Homo sapiens as
they functioned to stabilize altruistic responses and also solved the
problem of encouraging members of a social group to act ethically when
no longer in the line of sight of other members of the group; in other
words, they promoted self-control. The fact that human beings are
intentional animals capable of accurately inferring the mental states of
conspecifics made it easier to acquire the capacity for self normative
guidance though the internalization of a groups ethical norms.
In the exposition of his ethical theory Kitcher distinguishes between
biological, behavioral, and psychological altruism. Biological altruism
occurs when a biological entity promotes the reproductive success of
another entity at the expense of itself. Essentially, psychological
altruism is concerned with the intentions of an agent and is evident
when an individual adjusts his or her actions to take into account the
interests and desires of other people. Behavioral altruists act to further
their own, self-serving interests while seeming to intentionally act in
ways that promote others interests. Kitcher argues that ethical norms
are especially important in preventing altruism failure by prompting
people to behave altruistically even if they are not inclined to do so.
Ideally,(p.218) we would all be committed and competent
psychological altruists, but given the complexities of modern living, and
taking into account out psychological nature, this is unrealistic. In this
chapter our focus is solely on psychological and behavioral altruism.
We would now like to look at the concept of psychological altruism more
closely. Kitcher (2010) states that
To be an altruist is to have a particular kind of relational structure
in your psychological lifewhen you come to see that what you do
will affect other people, the wants you have, the emotions you feel,
the intentions you form change from what they would have been in
the absence of that recognition. Because you see the consequences
for others of what you envisage doing, the psychological attitudes
you adopt are different. (p. 122)
In offering a rigorous analysis of psychological altruism Kitcher (2010,
p. 123) distinguishes between the desires (or other relevant mental
states) an altruistic person is likely to have when his/her actions only
have consequences for him or herself and those when his/her actions
will have an observable impact on other persons. In this kind of
situation (we have paraphrased Kitcher here) he stipulates that (a) the
desires an agent acts on will be more closely aligned with those he/she
attributes to another person than it would be if he/she acted in a solitary
context; (b) the desire that leads an agent to act follows from his/her
perception of the other persons desires; and (c) the desire that caused
the agent to act in this context was not intended to further his/her own
interests. Rather, he gives priority to the desires of the other persons
and relegates his/her own desires to the background. Kitcher makes it
clear that there are likely to be other mental states such as emotions
that accompany the altruistic persons desires when he/she acts
altruistically, for example, compassion or sadness.
Once he defined psychological altruism Kitcher states that because
altruism is a multidimensional concept it makes little sense to assert
that a person is either altruistic or not. Rather, he proposes that
[i]ndividuals can be placed in a multi-dimensional space where
complete egoism is represented by a single plane, and the various forms
of altruism range over the entire rest of the space (p. 126). More
specifically, Kitcher contends that an individuals altruism profile can be
established by using five dimensions. The intensity of an altruistic
response involves the degree to which people realign their own desires
or interests to accommodate those of another. Therange of someones
profile refers to the list of people whose desires or interests (could
involve all human beings or be restricted to family and friends) he/she
normally takes into account when acting. The scope of an altruism
profile denotes the internal and external contexts in which an individual
is likely act altruistically. (p.219) For example, a male might usually
take his partners desires into account in their relationship unless he
was feeling angry or depressed. An individuals discernment refers to
his/her ability to identify the consequences of his/her actions for
relevant others. Finally, someones empathetic skills speaks to the
ability to accurately infer another persons desires, or more broadly,
relevant mental or physical states. This is similar to the notion of
perspective taking and theory of mind ability. Kitcher comments that
typically individuals altruistic profiles consist of an inner circle of
valued people whose interests they almost always take into account
when acting in ways that are likely to influence them. However, it is
likely that the interests of persons on the periphery or beyond this circle
would be overlooked or downplayed. Another important aspect of
Kitchers concept is the idea of second-orderpsychological altruism. This
occurs when an agent X perceives that his interaction partner Y wishes
to confer a benefit on X and sets out to realign his/her (Ys) actions in a
way that acknowledges Xs desires and interests. In this situation X is
exhibiting second-order altruism when he permits Y to act in this way
because of his perception that this is important to Y.
Kitcher presents an analysis of psychological altruism as a
multidimensional concept, and the point of describing the five
dimensions is to encourage researchers to think of the type of
psychological altruism individuals display, or alternatively, to elucidate
the nature of altruism failures. Taking a step back it is possible to
transform the concept of psychological altruism into a theoretical
framework that is capable of guiding theorists and empirical researchers
in the formulation of explanations of altruism (and empathy) failures.
From the perspective of this framework individuals act in ways that
disregard the interests of others (altruism failure) in situations where
other peoples desires and interests should have high priority, when (1)
they do not sufficiently modulate their own desires (etc.) to adequately
respond to the situation at hand (intensity); (2) they unreasonably
exclude certain classes of people or specific individuals from the list of
those toward whom they ought be behave altruistically and therefore
would not sexually abuse them (range); (3) they fail to behave
altruistically in certain contexts because of the influence of cognitive
emotional, physiological, social, or environmental factors (scope); (4)
they are incapable of or fail in certain contexts to exhibit their capacities
to discern the consequences of their actions for the individuals they
sexually abuse (discernment); and (5) they lack the capacity to
accurately detect the mental states of people they abuse or, if they
posses this capacity, they fail to exercise it in certain contexts
(empathetic skill). Of course, these claims are abstract and overly
general, but they function as useful indicators of the social,
psychological, and physical variables researchers ought to concentrate
their efforts on.

(p.220) Relationship between Empathy and Psychological Altruism

It seems to us that the multidimensional concept of psychological
altruism has several advantages over the concept of empathy within the
correctional domain. First, conceptualizing altruism in a graduated way
means that it is not simply a question of whether a person is responsive
to anothers interests or is not. It is more likely that individuals will
possess their own altruism profile consisting of the weightings on each
of the five dimensions described earlier.
Second, empathetic responses and their constituents have a role to play
in psychological altruism. For one thing, empathic emotions such as
compassion or sadness may accompany a persons desire to take
anothers interests into account in certain contexts. Furthermore, the
perspective-taking component of empathy, as construed in the sex
offending literature, is evident in the empathetic skills and discernment
dimensions of psychological altruism. The more complex empathy
models such as the one formulated by Barnett and Mann (2013) also
map onto the multidimensional concept of psychological altruism. Or
more accurately, it maps onto the theoretical framework we derived
from Kitchers analysis. It seems clear that the emotion and perspective-
taking components of Barnett and Manns theory map nicely onto
Kitchers dimensions of empathetic accuracy and discernment. While
the claim that emotions can accompany the perception of anothers
distress incorporates the construct of empathic emotions. The assertion
that empathic responses are mediated partly by compassion and respect
for target persons seems to be directly related to issues of range. That is,
the class of individuals who are accorded a certain moral status is
thought to merit our respect and compassion when experiencing
hardship. The requirement that contextual variables and competing
motivations do not override an empathic response appears to be a
straightforward example of Kitchers notion of context. Finally, Barnett
and Manns assumption that individuals levels of personal distress be
suitably modulated in order for an empathic response to occur is also an
example of the importance of context from an altruism viewpoint. One
element of Kitchers concept of psychological altruism that is not
mentioned by Barnett and Mann is that of intensity, or the matching of
the degree of an altruistic response to the demands of a situation.
Third, problematic aspects of the concept of empathy as formulated by
theorists and some puzzling research findings can potentially be
accommodated by the employment of the concept of psychological
altruism. For example, the finding that some sex offenders appear to
lack empathy only for their victims rather than for all children or adult
females (for example), may reflect a narrowness of range or problem
with scope. That is, in certain contexts an (p.221) individuals normal
altruism inclinations are overridden. In addition, some sex offenders
may lack the ability to accurately discern a victims mental states and
thus suffer from skill deficits while other offenders may have the
relevant skills but fail to utilize them when angry, or sexually aroused (a
scope or context failure). Thus an etiological implication of the
psychological-altruism perspective is that while sexual offenses can
occur in the absence of empathy deficits every act of sexual aggression
displays a lack of psychological altruism. By way of contrast, the
altruism framework also predicts that individuals may inhibit sexually
aggressive actions and act altruistically without demonstrating the
cognitive and affective elements of an empathic response. This could be
because they do not want to let their friends down, because they are
committed to specific moral norms, or because they calculate that it is in
their best interests to do so. In our experience, offenders often give
these types of reasons for inhibiting sexually deviant or aggressive
desires and impulses.
Fourth, the multidimensional concept of psychological altruism offers
practitioners an overarching ethical/psychological framework with
which to approach treatment with sex offenders. As we shall
demonstrate below, locating problems in the intensity, range, scope,
discernment, and empathetic-skills components of psychological
altruism can help to highlight key areas of clinical concern and focus
intervention efforts more tightly. The fact that the presence of
psychological altruism directly reflects the recognition of others needs
and supports the legitimacy of adjusting ones own actions in the light of
others relevant mental states, points to its moral relevance.
Fifth, the concepts of psychological and behavioral altruism have certain
advantages over that of empathy when it comes to appreciating the norm
laden nature of offender treatment and rehabilitation. An empathic
response is likely to motivate individuals to act in an ethical manner
because of their awareness of others mental states and the fact that
empathy-related emotions (or affective states) such as compassion,
guilt, shame, remorse, and concern are action directing. However, if for
some reason a person fails to experience empathy in the face of a
potential victims suffering or confusion, it can play no role in
accounting for their inhibition of sexually deviant desires or
inclinations. However, the concept of psychological and behavioral
altruism can do so. A person may be strongly inclined not to sexually
offend against someone, even in the face of conflicting motivations,
because he is committed to acting in accordance with norms that are
directed toward the desires and needs of the potential victim. The
investment in certain norms, in conjunction with the other
requirements for acting in a psychologically altruistic manner, can
promote actions despite the lack of empathic emotions. In other words
the experience of empathic affective states is not required for altruistic
actions, either of a psychological or behavioral form. In addition,
because a (p.222) primary aim of offender treatment is to reduce the
chances of altruistic failures occurring, all of the specific treatment
modules delivered to offenders are underpinned by norms that
specifically link each to this overarching goal. For example, in treatment
sex offenders learn how to establish adaptive social relationships, and by
doing so, are less likely to use sex with children as a means of securing
intimacy. The specific instructions or norms outlining how treatment
ought to proceed are undergirded by a general norm: it is good to
establish sexually intimate relationships with adults (and wrong to do so
with children). There are both prudential and moral aspects to this
norm. On the one hand, adults are more likely to be able to meet
offenders needs for companionship and love, and on the other, sex with
children is harmful to them and therefore wrong. Because the overall
goal of treatment is to reduce altruism failureswhich offending surely
representsand also to increase the chances of offenders experiencing
second-level altruism, the concept of psychological altruism provides a
comprehensive psychological and ethical guide for practitioners.
In conclusion, while empathetic responses are useful treatment targets
because they can motivate altruistic actions (e.g., inhibit aggressive
behavior), people can behave altruistically without feeling empathetic
emotions or inclinations. This may be because they are committed to
certain norms, they do not want to let down a mentor, or for a number of
other reasons. There may in fact be multiple pathways to acting
altruistically. An advantage of orientating interventions with offenders
around the concept of altruism is that it broadens the range of
therapeutic targets and can explain (a) why empathetic responses such
as sympathy can facilitate prosocial behavior and also (b) why a person
might act in ways that are clearly other serving while not experiencing
empathy-related emotions such as sympathy. This is not to downgrade
the importance of empathy in morality, merely to locate it in its
appropriate place in the context of offender rehabilitation. An additional
issue is that an individual may fail to act altruistically because of the
influence of external contextual factors and not because he or she lacks
the capacity to feel for others or to accurately infer their mental states.
Thus it is not sufficient for therapists to assist offenders to cultivate
appropriate psychological predispositions such as sympathy, perspective
taking, or compassion; it is not simply a question of character or
personality development. Sometimes contextual or environmental
factors will override someones normally empathetic nature, for
example, social isolation or extreme stress. What are required in these
instances are social interventions that seek to alleviate problems such as
poverty, lack of support, or environmental threats. In our view, the
altruism framework sketched above is able to accommodate these
variables with relative ease.

(p.223) Psychological Altruism and Treatment of Sex

Offenders
Aims of Rehabilitation
The aims of treatment from the framework of psychological altruism is
to make it less probable that an offender will experience altruism failure
and therefore fail to take the desires and interests of relevant individuals
into account in the course of their daily lives. Failure to do so could
adversely impact on them and other members of the community in two
ways. First, once in a high-risk situation, disregarding the desires and
interests of a potential victim makes it easier for an individual to
commit an offense. Second, consistently acting in ways that ignore the
preferences and interests of other people is likely to impair the
reintegration process because of the corrosive effects on offenders
vocational, social, and intimate relationships (Ward & Laws, 2010). A
downstream effect of any subsequent social rejection may well be
further offending. Minimizing the likelihood of altruism failures
occurring by strengthening the social, psychological, and situational
constituents of psychological altruism through correctional
interventions should also make it easier for offenders to live more
fulfilling and meaningful lives.

Etiological Considerations
The Risk-Need-Responsivity model (RNR) of offender rehabilitation
states that effective correctional interventions should follow the
principles of risk, need, and responsivity. While a number of conceptual
and practice problems have been identified in this model, most
researchers and practitioners working with offenders agree that ethical
and effective practice should be guided by the RNR principles (Ward &
Maruna, 2007; Ward & Stewart, 2003). One core requirement of RNR
practice is that clinicians concentrate their therapeutic efforts on
managing or eliminating dynamic risk factors. These psychological and
environmental variables are thought to causally contribute to the onset
of criminal events and their successful reduction typically results in
lowered reoffending rates (Andrews & Bonta, 2010). The theoretical
framework we derived from Kitchers multidimensional concept of
psychological altruism can easily accommodate the RNR principles in
the following way. Criminogenic needs such as offense-supportive
beliefs and attitudes, intimacy deficits, emotional regulation problems,
substance abuse, and impulsivity represent causal variables that are
likely to impair the ability of offenders to act in a psychologically
altruistic way. For example, offense-supportive beliefs, or what(p.224)
have been termed cognitive distortions, typically cast potential victims in
ways that permit the offender not to consider them as having the same
moral status as them or else as possessing desires and preferences that
make sexual abuse acceptable. This is a problem relating to the range
dimension. Two good examples of this type of cognitive distortions are
the belief that women are untrustworthy or dangerous, and that children
are sexual agents (Gannon & Polaschek, 2006). The former depicts
women as belonging to a class of beings whose desires and interests are
not that relevant when engaging in sex and the latter portrays children
as competent sexual beings who are capable of making decisions about
sex for themselves. We suggest that all of the dimensions of intensity,
range, scope, discernment, and empathetic skill can be linked to causal
factors resulting in a sexual offense, directly or indirectly (see below).

Assessment
The aim of the assessment phase of sex offender treatment is to
systematically collect clinically relevant information about individuals
offending, functional life domains, personal characteristics, and
developmental and social history. Once a sex offenders problems have
been identified a case formulation (or miniclinical theory) is
constructed in which the nature of the problems, their onset,
development, and interrelationships are described. Following the
development of a case formulation, clinicians construct an intervention
plan in which the various treatment goals, their sequencing, and
strategies for achieving them are noted. As outlined earlier, the
components of a comprehenisve sex offender treatment program should
include the following types of interventions: cognitive
restructuring/offense reflection, sexual reconditioning, sexual
education, social skill training, problem solving, (empathy) perspective
taking/constructing victim biographies/victim impact work, intimacy
work, acquiring emotional regulation skills, lifestyle/leisure planning
and experience, vocational training, and reentry or adjustment planning
including relapse prevention (Marshall, Marshall, Serran, & Fernandez,
2006; Laws & Ward, 2011).
When formulating a case the theoretical framework we derived from
Kitchers altruism dimensions can be used to direct and concentrate
clinical attention to certain kinds of problems. Drawing from the
assessment data (comprising interview information, psychological
measures, archive data, behavioral observations, etc.) practitioners can
ask the following questions, each covering one of the five dimensions of
altruism.
Range. Are there any individuals or classes of people explicitly excluded
from Xs list of altruism targets? Does he hold certain beliefs or
attitudes that (p.225) effectively disenfranchise persons from a
consideration of their interests, for example children or young adult
women? Does he lack the skills to communicate openly and honestly
with adults?
Scope. Are there any internal contexts in which Xs ability to act
altruistically are compromised in some way? For example, does he find
it hard to take account of someone elses interests when feeling angry,
sexually aroused, or lonely? What about external contexts? Does X
struggle to control his sexually deviant desires and preferences when
alone with a child or woman? What about if he is in the company of
certain groups of friends? Or when he is socially isolated?
Discernment. Does X lack an adequate understanding of the
psychological and developmental needs of children? Are his problem-
solving and inductive-reasoning skills of poor quality, making it difficult
for him to think through the consequences of acting in sexually abusive,
or offense reacted ways?
Empathetic skills. Does X struggle to accurately identify other peoples
mental states during an interaction? Is he able to adjust his actions in
light of his reading of others mental states?
Intensity. Does X possess the general practical reasoning and self-
management skills in order to frame other peoples situations in ways
that accurately describes what is going on for them? Having done this,
can he realign his own desires (and other relevant mental states) and
actions in order to respond in an appropriate manner? We view intensity
as a more global capacity that builds on the skills and so on aligned to
the other altruism dimensions.
It is anticipated that the answers to the above questions will enable
practitioners to pinpoint the reasons why a sex offender acted in ways
contrary to the desires and interests of their victim. This information
can then be recruited in the construction of the case formulation and
subsequent intervention plan. A clinical benefit of using the
psychological altruism framework in this way is that it functions a bit
like a fishing net: it guides clinical attention to a broad range of possibly
relevant offense variables, and then by drawing the threads of the net
together, focuses energies on the issue of altruism failures and building
competencies to promote psychological altruism. It has a certain
elegance about it.

Practice
In discussing the practice implications of the theoretical framework
derived from Kitchers concept of psychological altruism, we will
describe briefly a number of typical sex offender treatment modules and
trace their potential for strengthening altruistic actions. The description
of the modules content is based on our clinical experiences and the
work by Marshall and colleagues (p.226) (e.g., Marshall, Marshall,
Serran, & Fernandez,2006) and Ward and colleagues (e.g., Ward, Mann,
& Gannon, 2007).

Understanding Ones Offense/Cognitive Restructuring

The aim of this treatment module is for offenders to acquire an
understanding of their offense process and the psychological and
contextual triggers and precursors to their offending. With gentle
prompting and feedback from the group, often individuals start to
question their interpretations of their victims actions and their own
justifications for what they did. Ideally, an offender will exit this phase
of treatment with a sense of accountability for their actions, awareness
of the problematic nature of some of their beliefs and attitudes, and a
grasp of their own suite of risk factors for further offending.
The foci of this model are individual offense-supportive beliefs and
attitudes and acceptance of responsibility for their abusive actions. It is
normal to see the emergence of an awareness of their cognitive and
emotional barriers to accepting victims as moral equals: beings who
merit equal consideration of their desires, needs, and interests when
contemplating sex. Furthermore, clinicians may obtain insight into
offenders knowledge of sex and interpersonal relationships, and their
level of empathetic skill. Finally, it should be possible to ascertain how
emotionally competent individuals are and what relationships exist
between emotional states and offending (contextual dimension).

Empathy Training
As stated earlier in this chapter, the major aim of the empathy module is
to encourage offenders to reflect on the impact of sexual abuse on
victims and their families. This is achieved through the use of victim
biographies, role-plays of the index offense, and the assimilation of
information about sexual abuse and its consequences for victims.
Offenders often describe this as an emotionally devastating experience
and report that it helped them to grasp the self-serving nature of their
behavior and the callous disregard for the wellbeing of vulnerable
children and unconsenting adults.
Victim perspective-taking and appropriate emotional responding are
therapeutic targets of this module, classical components of an empathy
response. In the language of psychological altruism, an expectation is
that empathetic accuracy is improved, discernment skills are sharpened,
and contextual features of high-risk situations that increase the
likelihood of sexual crime occurring, are discovered.

(p.227) Sexual Reconditioning

The aim of the sexual reconditioning module is self-evident: to shift
sexual preferences in sex offenders from inappropriate targets (children
and unconsenting adults) to appropriate targets (i.e., consenting adults).
The techniques used in this module include covert desensitization
(whereby formerly arousing deviant sexual fantasies lose their power to
arouse) and reconditioning procedures (where individuals learn to
become aroused to nondeviant adult sexual stimuli).
It seems pretty obvious that individuals whose sexual preferences
involve sex with children or coerced sex with adults usually lack
empathetic accuracy when committing their offenses. They typically
believe that the child is receptive to their advances or that the adult
victim was really willing, or if not, consent was not required because of
their perceived lowered status. Thus, cognitive distortions tend to
accompany deviant sexual preferences and there is often problem of a
range. The way sexual arousal overrides any existing internal inhibitions
may also indicate the occurrence of scope difficulties.

Social Skills and Intimacy Interventions

The social skills/intimacy module seeks to equip offenders with the
internal and external capabilities to adaptively navigate their way though
the social world and to learn how to establish and maintain intimate
relationships. Research has indicated that some offenders commit
sexual offenses because of their feelings of loneliness and social
isolation (Ward, Mann, & Gannon, 2007). In addition, there is emphasis
on dealing with social conflicts and learning how to communicate
feelings in a range of interpersonal contexts, from work to
disagreements in close relationships. Frequently, the impact of
offenders early interpersonal relationships are explored and the
resulting influence on their internal working models of attachment
figures and romantic partners are clearly identified.
The human world is pretty much a social world, and there is no
practically possible way to escape or avoid the demands and impact of
interpersonal relationships. Offending is an interpersonal event and
involves an interaction between at least two people: the offender and the
person he sexually assaults. Internal working models of relationships
that are characterized by distrust or perceptions of vulnerability may
impair offenders perceptions of children and adults and result in sexual
crimes. Problematic beliefs of these types, and the strategies that
accompany them, make it difficult for offenders to function in a
psychologically altruistic way. There is frequently a problem of range,
where (p.228) the needs and interests of certain people are dismissed
as irrelevant, or else are misperceived in ways that promote sexual
offending (empathetic skill). There may also be problems of context
(e.g., experiencing altruism failure when feeling lonely) that would
benefit from therapeutic attention.

Emotional Regulation
Emotional regulation modules tend to look closely at offenders
competence on a number of emotional tasks. These include being able to
accurately identify and label an emotion, in oneself and in others; once
the emotions have been correctly identified, knowing how to act in
(adaptive) ways prompted by the emotion in question; and being able to
manage powerful emotional states so they do not overwhelm the person
concerned.
Powerful emotional states can disinhibit individuals and create immense
pressure on them to act non-altruistically. For example, if an offender is
experiencing strong feelings of anger, self-control could prove to be
particularly challenging. Norms directing him to attend to his potential
sexual partners desires or preferences may be overlooked and his own
desires are thought to trump all other motivations; he commits an
offense. Alternatively, another sex offender could use sex as a soothing
activity and when feeling vulnerable, anxious, or depressed seeks out a
sexual partner. These kinds of problems are unfortunately relatively
common and point to issues with psychological altruism. Perhaps the
most obvious issue relates to one of internal context, where failure to
effectively modulate certain moods makes it hard for an offender to
interact in a psychologically altruistic manner; his own desires and
needs take precedence in a context when the reverse should be true.

Problem Solving
The final module we will consider is that of problem solving. Basically,
in this module offenders learn how to frame problems and work toward
effective solutions. The aim is to increase their ability to step back from
social and personal crises in order to reflect on the nature of the
difficulty, and by thinking in a flexible and pragmatic way arrive at a
workable solution. Offenders learn the various phases of problem
solving and how to seek relevant information when deciding between a
number of options to resolve their difficulties.
The acquisition of good problem-solving skills is most likely to improve
the way offenders think about the consequences of their actions
(discernment dimension) although it does have implications for the
other dimensions as well. (p.229) For example, when faced with an
interpersonal problem or experiencing a negative emotion such as
intense fear, the offender would ideally sit back and ask himself what is
going on. Creating cognitive space between feeling and acting should
open up further opportunities to explore his difficulties and to consider
alternative ways of dealing with them. This could result in a shift of
focus from his own needs to what the potential victim is experiencing,
and ultimately, to a decision to realign his own desires to those of the
other person and not to engage in a sexual assault. It is also to be
expected that improved problem-solving skills could impact in a positive
manner on offenders cognitive distortions and thus contribute to
dealing with any possible altruism failures associated with the
dimension of range.

Conclusions
In this chapter we have explored the relevance of the concept of
empathy for sex offender research and practice. In doing so, it became
apparent that empathy may play an important role in motivating
individuals to act in morally acceptable ways, and importantly, to cease
offending. After examining empathy and its conceptualization in the
sexual offending field more closely, we concluded that the concept of
psychological altruism and its associated five dimensions could
incorporate valued aspects of empathy, while avoiding some of the
conceptual and practice-related problems that attend it. After describing
Kitchers concept of psychological altruism, and using it as the basis for
an altruism theoretical framework, we investigated its implications for
practice. In our view, the capacity of the psychological altruism concept
to provide an ethical and theoretical framework for viewing correctional
practice is encouraging. It reminds practitioners that work with sex
offenders has a strong normative as well as a scientific or empirical
dimension and that the concept of psychological altruism is much better
positioned to provide this broader perspective than that of empathy.
Empathy and Morality in Ethnographic
Perspective
Douglas Hollan
What is the relationship between empathy and morality? Is empathy
inherently prosocial, leading to altruistic acts and behaviors as some
evolutionary-minded psychologists (Hoffman 2011, Haidt 2012, Batson
2012), neurobiologists (Harris 2007), ethologists (de Waal 2009), and
care ethicists (Slote 2007) have suggested? Or is it instead certain moral
climates that promote the development of human empathy and that
encourage or use empathy to promote peoples care and well-being? In
this chapter, I address these and related questions by reviewing some of
the recent ethnographic work on empathy and morality, work that
attempts to describe and analyze these phenomena in social and cultural
contexts, as a part of ongoing, naturally occurring behavior. I begin by
discussing recent anthropological definitions and conceptions of
empathy and morality before turning to the ethnographic evidence as
to how these two phenomena are related to one another. I argue that
while there is ample evidence from neurobiology and ethology to
suggest that basic forms of empathy (Stueber2006)rooted in
automatic, biologically based, embodied forms of imitation and
attunementare critical to human sociality and communication
anywhere, the ways in which these basic forms become developed and
elaborated into more complex, marked forms of empathy (p.231)
(Hollan & Throop 2008, Hollan & Throop2011b) that can be mobilized to
help or to harm others may vary considerably across communities,
across individuals within communities (Hollan 2008, 2011, Groark
2008), and through time.

Recent Anthropological Conceptions of Empathy and

Morality
Anthropology, like a number of other fields including philosophy
(Kogler & Stueber 2000, Stueber 2006, Zahavi & Overgaard 2012),
neuroscience (Decety & Ickes 2009, Goldman 2011) evolutionary studies
ethology (de Waal2009), medicine (Halpern 2001, Farrow & Woodruff
2007), and psychoanalysis (Bohart & Greenberg 1997, Teman 2012), has
recently rediscovered (Stueber 2006) empathy and its significance in
human life.1 And much like many of the scholars in these other
disciplines, many anthropologists have been impressed by new research
into phenomena such as mirror neurons (Iacoboni 2008) and
neurobiological processes of facial recognition, emotional contagion, and
mimicry (Preston & Hofelich 2012) that suggest the critical importance
of evolved, embodied forms of attunement and imitation in animal
sociality, including human sociality, intersubjectivity, and
cooperativeness. Yet from the point of view of anthropologists who base
their work in ethnographic research, many of the claims made about the
centrality of more complex and enacted forms of empathy and related
processes in human life, including morality, remain tentative and
untested, since we still know so little about how empathy actually
unfolds in the context of everyday forms of behavior around the world
(Throop and Hollan 2008, Hollan and Throop 2011, Hollan 2012).
Nevertheless, the limited ethnographic data that does exist sheds
interesting light, I will argue, on the issue of how (and if) empathy and
morality are related to one another.
To begin with, ethnographic studies raise the issue of just what it is we
mean by empathy in a cross-cultural context. Contemporary, formal
definitions of empathy, though themselves often contested and
unsettled (Coplan & Goldie 2011b, Engelen & Rottger-Rossler 2012,
Zahavi & Overgaard 2012), usually emphasize that it is a way of
recognizing and assessing what another person is thinking, feeling,
doing, or intending from a quasi-first-person perspective, and that this
process involves both cognitive and emotional aspects. Some such as
Halpern (2001:9192) suggest that it is the emotional, experiential part
of the response that guides and provides a context for what one imagines
or (p.232) understands about the others experience. Formal
definitions also usually note that while empathy entails an emotional
resonance between the empathizer and the object of empathy, it is also
characterized by the maintenance of a clear cognitive and experiential
boundary between the two, such that the empathizer can always
distinguish between her own thoughts and feelings and those of the
other. For many researchers, this is what distinguishes empathy from
sympathy, compassion, pity, or some form of emotional contagion.
As I have noted elsewhere (Hollan 2012, Hollan & Throop 2011b), recent
ethnographic work suggests that while many people around the world
identify and label forms of social knowing and assessment that overlap
with this definition, few seem to have concepts that are identical to it.
One area of overlap is the idea that first-person perspective taking
involves both emotional resonance and cognitive or imaginative aspects
(e.g., Feinberg 2011, Hollan 2011, Throop 2011, Mageo 2011, Lohmann
2011). Yet this finding in itself is not all that surprising, given how few
non-Westerners attempt to make or maintain the sharp distinction
between thinking and feeling that is so central to post-
Enlightenment American-European folk and scientific psychology (Lutz
1988; Wikan 1992). But beyond this, definitional issues get murky. In
the Pacific region, for example, what might be identified as empathic-
like responses shade much more closely, both semantically and
behaviorally, to what English speakers would refer to as love,
compassion, sympathy, pity, or some combination of these states
(Hollan & Throop 2011b). In the eastern Indonesian society of Toraja,
terms suggesting empathic-like feelings, but translating more literally as
love-compassion-pity, imply a strong identification with the subject of
attention, such that one feels moved to intervene and help, as if one had
no other choice (Hollan 2011, Hollan & Wellenkamp 1994, 1996). While
such responses resemble in some respects the evolved altruistic
impulses that de Waal (2009) posits, they also raise the more general
issue of whether empathy per se is ever found as a relatively pure,
isolated experience, or whether in fact it is an awareness that must be
carved out of other closely related social sentiments, with boundaries
that remain semantically and behaviorally fuzzy and open to cultural
and symbolic mediation (cf. Zahavi 2012). This might explain why even
academic researchers seem to have such a difficult time maintaining a
clear distinction between empathy and other social sentiments, and also
partly why the renowned cultural anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, was so
adamant that anthropologists not use empathy as a primary means of
ethnographic investigation (Geertz 1984) to avoid the danger of
projecting ones own ethnocentric emotional experience onto the
unsuspecting subjects of study.
Ethnographic studies also underscore the important distinction that the
philosopher Karsten Stueber draws between basic empathy and what
he refers to as reenactive empathy (Stueber 2006). For Stueber, basic
empathy (p.233) entails all those sensory and perceptual mechanisms
that allow us to determine that another person is angry, sad, elated, or in
some other emotional or intentional state. Reenactive empathy, in
contrast, refers to all other cognitive, emotional, and imaginative
capacities that allow us to use our own first-person, folk psychological
knowledge and experience as actors to model and understand the
experience of others. Significantly, the concept of reenactive empathy
emphasizes the doubly culturally- and historically-bound nature of
complex empathic awareness and knowledge: that is, the fact that the
subjects of our empathy are people who think, act, and feel in very
specific culturally and historically constituted moral worlds while we
ourselves, as empathizers, are similarly bound and constrained. Given
the challenges this poses for accurate understanding of others behavior,
especially in a cross-cultural context, Stueber discusses at some length
the fallibility and limits of empathic knowledge and indicates why it can
never be as rote and automatic as some hardcore simulation theorists
would suggestan important point that is often underemphasized or
ignored in the contemporary literature but which is reaffirmed by every
ethnographer forced to recognize that it is much more difficult to grasp
why someone has become angry than to recognize that he or she is
angry.
Stuebers distinction, while only heuristic, is an important one because it
draws attention to the complexity of the empathic process, including the
many ways it can go wrong, and opens up a conceptual space for us to
examine the ways in which basic, evolved capacities to attend to and
attune to other people and minds become elaborated into more complex,
culturally and symbolically mediated forms of empathy (Hollan &
Throop 2008,2011b) or suppressed and elided in specific social and
moral contexts. I refer to and imply this distinction between basic and
reenactive empathy throughout the chapter; however, because I think
the term reenactive suggests a literalness to the simulation process
that is unwarranted by our current understanding of it, I will instead
use, as I have elsewhere (2012), complex empathy to contrast with
basic empathy. Complex empathy refers to and includes the culturally
and historically informed awareness and knowledge any person must
have to understand why a person is in a certain emotional or intentional
state. Such awareness is certainly dependent on all the basic processes of
intersubjectivity discussed above, but is both more conscious and fallible
than basic empathy.
Anthropology has also begun to reexamine the concepts of morality
and ethics in social life Of course the study of norms and values has
been central to modern anthropology and the social sciences since the
foundational work of Durkheim and Weber. Irving Hallowell (1955), for
example, argued long ago that all human societies are moral societies
since they require people to evaluate their own behavior and that of
others relative to a set of culturally (p.234) established norms and
values. Yet much of this earlier work was focused on merely identifying
these culturally variable sets of norms and values and the hierarchical
relations among them or on demonstrating how values both shape and
are shaped by social, economic, and political relations and structures of
various types. More recently, however, anthropologists have become
more concerned with how values and conventions actually become
embodied and enacted, both consciously and unconsciously, in the
everyday flow of life (see for example, Zigon 2008, Lambek 2010,
Throop 2010, and Fassin 2012). This has led to a renewed interest in
virtue ethics in anthropology, this is, to the study of how a person
comes to enact moral behavior not passively and unreflectively, but
through particular embodied practices of self-care, self-cultivation, and
the development of practical wisdom. In an insightful review and
analysis of some of this recent work, Mattingly (2012) has identified two
basic strands of virtue ethics in contemporary anthropology, one
inspired more directly by neo-Aristolelian, humanistic influences, which
she refers to as first person virtue ethics, and one largely influenced by
Foucaults project (1990) of identifying how ethical regimes are
reproduced through training in self-care practices within predefined
ethical modes of life, which she refers to as poststructural virtue
ethics. While Mattingly emphasizes how different and incommensurate
the analytical implications can be of following one or another of these
strands of ethics, she also notes clearly what they have in common:
Both these post-Enlightenment moral frameworks are in broad
sympathy with anthropological critiques of universal reason. That
is, both claim that a moral decision or action cannot be determined
through some universal set of rules, procedures or reasoning
processes that one derives from an archimedian position. Rather the
moral is always historical, always shaped by social context . . . Both
contend that the moral in any society is dependent upon the
cultivation of virtues that are developed in and through social
 practices. The moral is centrally bound up with practices of self-care
and self-cultivation; it is not captured by espoused beliefs but rather
involves the emotions, the body, everyday activity. It is an integral
and pervasive aspect of social life. Both frameworks also emphasize
that the moral is a communal enterprise; there are no persons here
who are independent of the practical communities which shape the
technologies of virtue and the aspirations of the good life to which
individuals ascribe.
There is an obvious overlap, then, in these new anthropologies of
empathy and morality. The ethnographic study of empathy involves
examining how basic, evolved, intersubjective, and embodied
capacities to attend to and attune with other people, become culturally
elaborated (or not) into more (p.235) complex (Hollan2012),
reenactive (Stueber 2006, Hollan & Throop 2011b), higher-level
(Goldman 2006) forms of social knowing and awareness, elaborations
that may or may not include encouraging the development of empathic-
like capacities by placing a moral value or worth on them. The
contemporary ethnographic study of morality and ethics, on the other
hand, examines how people come to embody and enact, through
culturally elaborated practices of self-care and self-cultivation, moral
values and orientations. Here, the way one becomes virtuous may or
may not involve the cultivation of empathic-like capacities in oneself
and in others.
Interestingly, even though this new field of moral anthropology
(Fassin 2012) or the anthropology of morality (Mattingly 2012) derives
some of its inspiration from the moral sentimentalism of David Hume
and Adam Smith (cf. Throop 2012)emphasizing that moral values and
judgments are often linked to or motivated by such basic social
emotions as sympathy, compassion, and pityanthropologists working
within this tradition have not yet investigated very explicitly or
systematically the link between morality and empathy per se. This may
be because neither Hume nor Smith had access to the modern concept
of empathy and so did not use that term, or because contemporary
anthropologists have not yet seen the need to focus on empathy more
centrally than the other social sentiments that Hume and Smith
discussed and brought attention to. In any case, currently,
anthropologists focusing on empathy address the link between empathy
and morality more directly and explicitly than those focusing on
morality per se. For example, one of the central findings of the empathy
researchers is that from an ethnographic perspective, complex empathy
is never neutralas its clinical uses and definitions sometime imply
but is always found deeply embedded in a moral and political context
that affects its likelihood and means of expression, and its social,
emotional, and even its political and economic, consequences (Hollan &
Throop 2008, 2011b).
In the following sections, I review some of the ethnographic work that
relates empathy and morality, focusing especially on how this material
can be used to evaluate some of the claims from moral psychology and
philosophy that empathy either is or is not central to morality. I
specifically address the questions of whether empathic processes are
inherently prosocial or not, whether they are inherently biased toward
the near and dear, and the extent to which they provide a reliable and
consistent framework for moral action.
I must begin, though, by underscoring an observation about human
social life that Anthony Wallace (1961) made many years ago. Wallace
pointed out that much of social life anywhere in the world goes on
without intimate knowledge of others motives and intentionsthrough
habit, routine, common expectation, and widely shared rules of
language, social engagement, and etiquette. At (p.236) a time when
empathy has become rediscovered and made a central focus of
research in a large number of disciplines, Wallaces observation is
important to keep in mind. While basic empathic processes may
indeed play an important role in how humans orient to one another at
the most fundamental levels of intersubjectivity, their role in more day-
to-day forms of cultural behavior remain to be clarified and spelled out.
Wallace reminds us that there is much to social life besides empathy,
and that we must be careful not to exaggerate its role in human life.
Rather, we should be attempting to specify as precisely as we can when
and in what contexts empathic knowledge becomes important in the
everyday flow of human life and when and why it does not.
Ethnography, the description and analysis of naturally occurring
behavior, becomes an essential tool in this task.

Is Empathy Inherently Altruistic and Prosocial?

Many researchers influenced by evolutionary models of behavior and
culture argue that empathy is an essentially altruistic impulse or
response leading to prosocial, moral behavior unless or until it is
suppressed or inhibited in some way (e.g., de Waal 2009, Harris 2007,
Hoffman 2011, Haidt 2012, Slote 2007). This is of course different than
the clinical view of empathy as a morally neutral form of evaluation or
understandingmoral neutrality being the very thing thought to
distinguish empathy from other types of social emotions and
sentiments, and the very thing that makes it useful as a nonjudgmental,
therapeutic technique. Harris promotes the prosocial view of empathy
when he writes, The consequences of empathy are compassionate
behavior towards others, moral agency and ethical behavior based on
mercy and justice (Harris 2007:169). Similarly, Hoffman argues,
The overwhelming evidence . . . is that most people, when they
witness someone in distress, feel empathically distressed and
motivated to help. Thus empathy has been found repeatedly to
correlate positively with helping others in distress, even strangers,
and negatively with aggression and manipulative behavior. More
important, experiments show that empathy arousal leads observers
to help victims, and furthermore they are more quick to help the
more intense their empathic distress and the more intense the
victims pain. (Hoffman 2011:231)
The prosocial view of empathy accords well with the evidence that many
cultural and linguistic groups identify and label forms of prosocial,
positively valenced behavior and sentiments that resemble what English
speakers call empathy. I mentioned above, for example, that one can
find a strong cultural (p.237) value placed on developing and
maintaining emotionally positive and loving ties among people,
especially among kin, throughout the Pacific region (Hollan & Throop
2011a). While none of these linguistic terms or concepts is identical to
the academic concept of empathy, many of them do overlap with its
meaning. Feinberg (2011) notes that some version of the Anutan term
designating positive feeling and concern for others, aropa, is found
throughout Polynesia, including aloha (Hawaiian), aroha (Maori), alofa
(Samoan), and ofa (Tongan). And as mentioned above, in the eastern
Indonesian society of Toraja, terms that suggest English translations of
love-compassion-pity for others often imply a moral obligation to
intervene and help these others, as if one had no other choice.
Conversely a lack of such fellow feeling in Toraja often implies not only
that one does not understand anothers thought and feelings, but that
one is not moved by his or her plight, feels no need to intervene in it,
and does not oneself feel diminished or hurt by it (Hollan 2011, Hollan &
Wellenkamp 1994).
The Toraja inclination to do something with ones empathy is
widespread in the Pacific, where empathy is expressed more as a doing
or a performing that as a passive experiencing and where material
exchanges of various kinds, including the exchange of labor and service,
play a large part in such doing (Mageo 2011, Throop2011, Feinberg 2011,
von Poser 2011, Hollan 2011). This emphasis on the pragmatics of
empathy, literally its material consequences and effects, is of a piece
with a larger ethnopsychological constellation in the Pacific in which the
cultural focus is on action and effects, not internal states and motives
(White & Kirkpatrick 1985, Shore 1982, Throop 2011). In other words, in
much of the Pacific area the proof of ones empathic, caring response is
in ones action or inaction with regard to the target of empathy, not in
ones mere understanding of the other, no matter how accurate or
sensitive that understanding might be.
There are paradoxical effects to this form of empathy and fellow feeling.
On the one hand, the entailment to do something for the other
resonates with some contemporary conceptualizations of empathy as an
essentially altruistic, prosocial, impulse. Yet on the other hand, it is this
very awareness that others can and do use their knowledge of one that
makes many people around the world fear empathic-like knowledge as
much as they may encourage it at times (Hollan & Throop 2008, 2011b).
This is so because while empathy can be used to help people or to
interact with them more effectively, it may also be used to harm or
embarrass them, either consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or
unintentionally.
Even in the Pacific region, for example, where the love-compassion-
pity idiom is pronounced, many people are just as concerned with
concealing or protecting first-person subjective experience from others
as in revealing it (p.238) (Rumsey & Robbins 2008). Indeed, one of the
reasons why the Pacific region is such an interesting place to study
empathy and basic processes of intersubjectivity is because of the
widespread notion there that it is often difficult, if not impossible, to
know another persons heart or mind. While some anthropologists have
suggested that this belief in the opacity of other minds means that
people actually avoid acting upon or even speculating about other
peoples thoughts, feelings, or intentions (Robbins 2008), most have
argued that the opacity doctrine is not so much an epistemological claim
that one cannot know the mind of another as a political and moral one
about what is proper to say or publicly acknowledge about another
persons unexpressed feelings or intentions (Duranti 2008, Rumsey
2008, Keane 2008). As Keane (2008:477) puts it, The problem is not
psychological, or at least not epistemological. The problem concerns a
persons capacity to hide their inner thoughts from others. It is not that
thoughts are inherently unknowable, but that they ought to be
unspeakable. Or at least, it matters greatly who gets to speak about those
thoughts. This concern for the right to be the first person of ones own
thoughts, and acknowledgement of others right to be the first person of
theirs (Keane 2008:478) demonstrates the ambivalence people can
have about empathic-like awareness. On the one hand the opacity
doctrine demonstrates a high degree of respect for the autonomy of
others. On the other hand, though, it is an acknowledgment of peoples
vulnerability to the intimate knowledge that others may have of them.
Moral ambivalence about empathic-like knowledge can be found many
places in the world. In the Mexican highland Maya group that Groark
(2008) studied, people often presume the ill-will and antipathy of
others, up to and including their use of witchcraft to cause illness or
death. In a social and emotional climate such as this, people enact
positive politeness to block others intimate knowledge of themselves
and to mask their own thoughts and feelings about others, since people
can experience unmediated awareness of this kind as an intrusion or
attack. While certain curers are periodically allowed familial and social
access and diagnostic tools, such as pulse taking, necessary to encourage
communication and reconciliation among people, such mobilization of
marked empathic resourcesones that are culturally elaborated and
that often involve special modes of discernment(Hollan & Throop
2008, 2011b) usually occurs, ironically, only in the aftermath of
miscommunication among people, lack of empathy, and harm done.
The Inuit of the Canadian Arctic also fear that intimate knowledge can
be used to hurt rather than to help, especially in relation to the shaming
and humiliating of people into conventional, morally acceptable
behavior. Children in particular become the focus of such empathic-like
surveillance. Briggs reports (1998, 2008) that Inuit adults may use their
empathic awareness of (p.239) the fears, desires, and motives
underlying childrens misbehavior to draw attention to misbehavior and
to create fear and doubt in childrens minds about the propriety and
acceptability of their own actions and impulses, often in a way that
disguises the surveillance with humor or playfulness. For example, a
child who becomes overly friendly and unguarded with a non-kin person
or stranger might be told jokingly that she or he will be will be taken
home by the stranger and kept there. Such types of interactions lead
both adults and children to wonder, are these people commenting on my
behavior playing with me or hurting me? Am I being evaluated
negatively by these people and so in trouble with them or not?
Interestingly, Briggs (1998) argues that it is just this kind of emotional
ambivalence, stirred up by empathic-like surveillance, that makes core
cultural values and behaviors of the Inuit (or of anyone) so salient and
motivating to people, because it generates an awareness on the part of
actors that something is at stake here.
The Mayan and Inuit cases illustrate how people may fear how other
members of the in-group, those who are most likely to have either direct
or indirect access to potentially damaging or hurtful information about
oneself or intimates, might use empathic-like knowledge. Yet people fear
the use of such knowledge by outsiders as well, as in cases of
psychological warfare or dirty political campaigns. Bubandt, for
example, has reported how individuals from a Muslim group in North
Maluku (eastern Indonesia) forged a letter from the head of a local
Christian church in which the leader ostensibly encourages his
membership to attack Muslims in order to pave the way for a Christian
takeover of Northern Maluku and, eventually, the whole eastern part of
Indonesia (Bubandt 2009:554). The motive of the forgery, apparently,
was not to merely slander the Christians in the community, but rather to
scare the Muslim population of Maluku into a united front against
Christians by leading them to believe that the Christians were out to get
them. But for the forgery to succeed in this regard, it must first appear to
capture as authentically as possible what some of the concerns, worries,
and ambitions of the Christians might actually be. Bubandt uses the
forged letter to illustrate how groups may sometimes attempt to
empathize with their enemies in order to gain the kind of knowledge or
insight that might ultimately be used to undermine or defeat them.
From a cross-cultural point of view, then, it is clear that in the context of
everyday social practice, first-person-like knowledge of others is rarely,
if ever, considered an unambiguously good thing, despite the many
positive connotations empathy has in the European-American context.
Although empathic knowledge may be used to help others or to interact
with them more effectively, it may also be used to hurt or embarrass
people. As a result, everywhere we find complex concepts of personhood
that convey what is appropriate to know about people and what not, that
sketch out how porous or impermeable (p.240) the boundaries of the
self should be ideally, and that hint at the kind of damage empathic-like
knowledge can do when psychic integrity is breached inappropriately.

The Morality of Empathic Bias

De Waal (2009) argues that empathy is an evolved, automatic response
of approach and concern for others that is generally targeted toward the
welfare of a relatively small circle of family, friends, and partners (de
Waal2009:115). He suggests that while we are certainly capable of
feelings for others based on hearing, reading, or thinking about them,
our concern based purely on the imagination lacks strength and
urgency (De Waal2009:221). Preston reaches a similar conclusion,
noting that imaginary objects require more neural activation to be held
in working memory than do actually perceived ones (Preston 2007:429).
As a result, the strength of activation in imagined empathy is rarely as
high as in direct empathy because of the increased difficulty in attending
to internal over external stimuli (2007:429). True empathy, then,
according to de Waal, needs a face (2009:83). It builds on proximity,
similarity, and familiarity, which is entirely logical given that it evolved
to promote in-group cooperation (2009:221).
The idea that empathy may be naturally limited to the more near and
dear poses interesting interpretational challenges for those who accept
this finding and who are interested in its moral implications. Care
ethicists such as Michael Slote argue that it is the focused, targeted
nature of empathy that actually underlies and explains why so many
people make the implicit, intuitive moral distinctions and evaluations
they do (cf. Haidt 2012)such as the widespread inclination to assist or
save the person immediately in front of one rather than those who may
be equally needy but farther removed in space, time, or perceptionand
that such empathy-based distinctions are indeed morally defensible and
useful in determining moral action, including the resolution of moral
dilemmas. Yet for others (Prinz 2011a, Battaly 2011, Batson 2012), this
empathic bias, automatically and unselfconsciously feeling more
strongly about some than others, is one of the things that makes
empathy so incomplete and misleading as a measure of or guide for
morality and ethical action, since it may lead to preferential treatment
and requires no voluntary, virtuous effort or cultivation on the part of
the actor.
From an ethnographic and social psychological (Echols & Correll 2012)
perspective, however, the extent to which empathy may be imaginatively
extended beyond the immediate circle of friends, family, and the in-
group, and the implications of this for morality, remains an open
question. While it is clear that (p.241) many groups around the world
do indeed act preferentially toward immediate kin, or at least assert that
close kin deserve special care and concern, this preference for the kin
group may not be as automatic and limited as de Waal suggests. For
example, in a comparative study of empathy in Samoa and in the
contemporary United States, Mageo (2011) argues that empathic
responses become triggered and mobilized specifically through
attachment mechanisms and behaviors, and that these mediating
attachment behaviors are themselves highly sensitive to varying
enculturation practices. She demonstrates how attachment in
communally oriented Samoa is directed outward to the extended family
and community, while in the United States more inwardly to a much
smaller number of intimates, often limited to members of the nuclear
family. She argues that empathy flows along and through these varied
patterns of attachment and kinship and that it is through such flows of
empathy that important boundaries between groups are constructed and
maintained, including class and status distinctions (cf. Hermann 2011,
Throop 2011). An important point that Mageo makes is that empathy
may have a sharp moral edge to it: in bestowing it on some, we may
pointedly and deliberately withhold it from others, as when Samoan and
Inuit children are actively taught not to become too friendly and
attached to outsiders. Patterns of empathic withholding and boundary
maintenance thus often shadow patterns of empathic bridging.
While Mageo describes how Samoans direct empathy beyond immediate
kin outward to the larger community, this larger community is itself
relatively homogenous from an ethnic and religious point of view. In
contrast, Hermann (2011) discusses how the Banabans of island Fiji
make an effort to extend their empathic feelings and responses beyond
their own ethnic and religious groups. She argues that as a result of a
history of colonization, Chistianization, and displacement, Banabans
have made the idea of empathy and compassion a central aspect of their
ethnic identity and behavior, representing themselves not only as a
people who take pity on others, whether Banaban or not, but also as a
group entitled to the empathy and concern of others, including that of
non-Banabans most especially. Hermann uses historical data to
demonstrate how empathic-like behaviors can be used over time to
bridge and connect diverse groups as well as to separate them. Her larger
point is that expressions of empathy, and their moral implications, are
always embedded in historical and transcultural processes that make
any overly naturalized, static conceptions of them untenable.
Hermann also makes the point that though empathy may motivate
prosocial, compassionate behavior toward others, it may also entail and
mark, as it does among Banabans and other Pacific groups, a hierarchy
between those giving empathy and those receiving it, those giving
empathy being better off socially and economically and those receiving
empathy being less well off and (p.242) of lower social position. On the
island of Yap, for example, an individuals ability to take up a
compassionate stance or not is necessarily an indication and enactment
of an elevated position in the social hierarchy (Hollan & Throop
2011b:14). These hierarchical dimensions of empathy raise the issue of
whether empathy must inevitably be contaminated with feelings and
attitudes that English speakers associate with pity and whether it is an
attitude and behavior that, anywhere, only the relatively more secure
and well off can afford to display or enact.
While the Banaban case illustrates how cultural and moral practices and
mediations can extend the flow of empathy beyond the immediate kin or
ethnic group to more outside people, such flows can be extended even
further, to include nonhuman animals and numinous beings of various
kinds. As Lohmann (2011) notes, the empathic imagination can be
directed toward any being or entity one presumes to be mind-bearing.
Throughout the world, including the Pacific region (Hollan & Throop
2011a), we find people who enact empathic practices of worship and
veneration directed toward deceased ancestral kin and assorted deities.
What is important to note about such displays is that while some of
them are based on relatively pure forms of faith or imagination alone,
many involve embodied practices that embed and stimulate imagination
and empathy in a variety of very concrete sensory and perceptual
experiences. For example, a Toraja person who presents an offering of
food to the spirit of a deceased parent or grandparent may first dream of
the ancestral spirit asking for care or attention. Since Toraja conceive of
dream life as being just as real, though immaterial, as waking
experience (Hollan & Wellenkamp 1994), the emotional presence of the
ancestor is felt and experienced in a very direct, visceral way. Further,
during the feast at which the offering is made, the sights, smells, and
sounds of the gatheringwhich may sometimes include an effigy or
photograph of the ancestormay evoke vivid memories of times and
experiences when the ancestor was still alive and physically present.
Through such practices, numinous spirits are given a face toward
which an empathic response can be directed, though not the flesh and
blood one that de Waal posits. This would indicate, then, that
imaginative extensions of basic empathy beyond the concretely near
and dear can be made highly motivating and morally salient, depending
on the cultural and interpersonal context.

The Moral Fallibility of Empathy

Though the ethnographic data is still fairly limited, it appears that
empathy can be culturally extended and mediated beyond its most
basic, viscerally (p.243) based forms to be directed toward distantly
related kin and non-kin, as among Banabans on Fiji, and even to
nonmaterial, numinous beings such as ancestral spirits and deities of
various kinds, as in Toraja and many other places in the world. Yet this
says nothing about how morally fallible or infallible forms of empathy
may be, whether more limited, basic forms or the more imaginatively
extended ones. I noted above, for example, that while many people
around the world appear to encourage the development of empathic-like
behavior, they at the same time often fear its inaccuracy or misuse,
suggesting that even where empathy is culturally valued, there is
awareness of its fallibility as a guide or structure for moral action.
One aspect of this fallibility is how easily empathic-like feelings can be
overridden by the empathizers own needs, concerns, or fears. In rural
Toraja in the mountains of South Sulawesi, where many people live at
the margins of subsistence, it can be difficult if not impossible to always
respond to other peoples needs with empathy and generosity because of
ones own limited resources. Indeed, this inability to always live up to
cultural expectations of sharing and empathy is one of the reasons
Toraja villagers so often doubt others when they claim they are empty-
handed or bereft, because it is thought they may be hiding resources for
their own purposes (Hollan 2011). In a context such as this, where many
people are feeling burdened and overwhelmed by their reciprocal
obligations to others, Wellenkamp and I discovered (1994) that the
accurate perception and understanding of others often became clouded
by peoples own preoccupations. In particular, people often seemed to
exaggerate the dishonesty and untrustworthiness of others, which then
justified them in focusing on their own worries and concerns rather than
the worries and concerns of others.
The idea that personal distress of various kinds may interfere with ones
ability to empathize accurately has been widely discussed in the clinical
and psychological literature (Coplan & Goldie 2011b, Coplan 2011,
Decety & Meltzoff 2011, Decety & Lamm 2009, Ickes 1997, 2009, Mast &
Ickes 2007). The distress may be of a nature that interferes with ones
ability to recognize at all the situation of another, such as self-centered
preoccupation with ones own worries and concerns. Or the distress may
itself be rooted in an over-identification with the target of empathy, such
that the empathizer confuses the targets situation with his or her own,
leading to efforts to sooth and comfort self rather than the target. In
either case, we see how vulnerable accurate empathic perception and
concern is to situational factors of various kinds, and why any moral
action based upon such perception must be vulnerable as well
especially in places where political or economic uncertainty increases
the likelihood that people must worry more about the well-being of
themselves than of others.
(p.244) This of course raises the issue of the overall accuracy of higher,
more complex forms of empathy as a means of social awareness and
moral action even in the best of circumstances (Ickes 1997). As Coplan
suggests (2011:917), the necessity of the empathizer to maintain a clear
distinction between self- and other-oriented perspectives, in order not to
confuse or conflate the two perspectives, is always a challenging one,
requiring, ideally, attempts to imagine the others situation while
simultaneously suppressing and inhibiting the mobilization of ones
own preferences, values, and beliefs in the process. When for any reason
the distinction between self and other breaks down, either because the
imaginative and affective connection to the other is lost or because the
self perspective begins to intrude upon and overshadow ones imagining
of the other, then empathy breaks down as well: Sharing anothers
affect in the absence of self-other differentiation provides minimal
connection or understanding of the other or his experience. Taking up
ones perspective without clear self-other differentiation can result in
enmeshment or in self-oriented perspective-taking, which prevents one
from successfully representing the others experience and leads to
personal distress, false consensus effects, and prediction errors (Coplan
2011:17). The challenges of developing and maintaining an empathic
stance that accurately captures anothers situation in Toraja or anywhere
else suggests that while empathy may be a basic intersubjective capacity
that all humans engage in, it does not become a reliable guide for moral
action unless or until it becomes culturally elaborated into a virtue,
requiring people to self-consciously hone and cultivate it in themselves
and others (Battaly 2011).
Apart from situational constraints such as poverty and other forms of
personal distress that may affect peoples ability to empathize,
individuals within any cultural context, even those that strongly
encourage empathic behavior, will vary in their willingness or ability to
respond to others empathically, depending on a variety of developmental
experiences and dispositional traits (cf. Nezlek et al. 2007). Elsewhere
(Hollan 2011) I have discussed differences in the empathic displays of
two Toraja men whom I knew intimately. One tended to be very
generous and empathic with people, even those whom, from a Toraja
perspective, were not especially deserving of such concern. He was a
man who had suffered many hardships in his youth, including failed
marriages and work ventures and near starvation, and as a result,
seemed to identify closely with others who were suffering or struggling
in some way. In contrast, another man only grudgingly extended to
others the empathy and material resources he properly owed them as a
relatively well-to-do and high-status person. Not only had he become
quite cynical of the many people whom he thought had attempted to
take advantage of his obligation as a wealthier, higher status person to
protect and nurture, but he also had developed a more generalized
wariness of other (p.245) people that extended back into his childhood,
was reinforced during a period of political unrest in South Sulawesi, and
often gained expression in his dreams.
From an ethnographic point of view, it is clear that situational,
developmental, and dispositional constraints and affordances may all
affect, and sometimes compromise, peoples abilities to empathize in
culturally appropriate ways. Such findings do not undermine the claim
that human morality is rooted in powerful social sentiments of various
kinds, including empathy, but they do indicate that such sentiments may
be difficult to cultivate and enact on a consistent basis. Further, beyond
cases where social sentiments are undermined, suppressed, or
abandoned for relatively innocent reasonsas when rural Toraja wet-
rice farmers find it impossible to honor all their obligations to fellow
villagers and find the money to send their children to school or as when
women and mothers in very impoverished areas of Brazil must learn to
detach from starving, near-death infants so that very limited emotional
and material resources may be redirected toward those more likely to
survive (Scheper-Hughes 1992)there are those in which people are
more deliberately and self-consciously suppressing empathy and related
sentiments in order to protect themselves from those thought to be
potentially dangerous or to dominate others more directly and explicitly.
A growing body of literature on the ethnography of violence examines
the various ways in which people learn how to dis-identify from and
dehumanize others in order to control them or to act violently against
them (e.g., Daniel 1996; Das 2007; Hinton 2005; Kleinman, Das, &
Locke1997; Robben & Suarez-Orozco 2000). The active denial of
empathy to others may be rationalized as itself a type of moral action in
defense of self and community, but only at the expense of humiliating
and alienating those so denied, who may then themselves attempt to
suppress and deny empathy to others. Such schismogenesis-like
patterns (Bateson 1972)2 of mutual recrimination and denial of empathy
again indicate just how fragile empathy may be as a framework for
moral action. They also underscore that displays of empathy always
unfold in a political and economic context, as well as a moral one.
Although the active suppression of empathy and dehumanization of
others in order to cause harm is an extreme example of this, the
hierarchical structuring of empathy giving and receiving found
throughout the Pacific is no less political and economic.

(p.246) Conclusion
I have used some contemporary ethnographic studies of empathy and
morality to examine some of the claims from moral psychology and
philosophy about the significance of empathy in human life.
Ethnographic studies are helpful in this regard because rather than
presume the centrality of empathy on theoretical or conceptual grounds,
they examine how empathic processes manifest themselves and unfold
in the course of everyday, naturally occurring behavior, and how these
processes are related to, if not contingent upon, other forms of social
knowing, awareness, and communication. One of the first things
ethnographic studies make evident is just how difficult it is to define
empathy in a cross-cultural and historical context. While many groups
appear to have concepts that resemble or overlap with the formal
academic definition of empathy as a quasi-first-person perspective on
anothers situation that involves both affective resonance and
imaginative perspective taking, few have terms or concepts that are
identical to it. Many groups seem to have concepts that shade more
closely, both semantically and behaviorally, into what English speakers
would call sympathy, compassion, love, pity, or some
combination and blending of these terms. This raises the issue of
whether empathy per se is ever found as a relatively isolated
experience, or whether it is an awareness emanating from very basic
processes of intersubjectivity that must be culturally developed and then
carved out of other closely related social sentiments, with boundaries
that remain semantically and behaviorally fuzzy and open to cultural
and symbolic mediations of various types, including cultural and
symbolic suppression and inhibition.
Beyond these basic definitional issues, though, I have used ethnographic
data to evaluate claims about the extent to which empathic processes are
inherently prosocial and altruistic, whether they are inherently biased
toward the near and dear, and whether they can be used as a reliable and
consistent framework for moral evaluation and action. While it is clear
that many cultural and linguistic groups identify and label forms of
prosocial, positively valenced behavior and sentiments that English
speakers sometimes refer to as empathy, it is equally evident that
many of the same groups hold ambivalent attitudes toward such
sentiments. Among many of these groups, there is an acute awareness
that though empathic-like knowledge can be used to help people, it may
also be used to hurt or harm them. This wariness regarding first-person
perspective taking takes particularly stark form in the Pacific region,
where many groups assert the fundamental opaqueness of other
peoples hearts and minds. I have argued, following Keane (2008), that
this opacity doctrine is not so much an epistemological claim that one
cannot know the mind of another as it is a political and moral one about
what is proper to say or publicly(p.247) acknowledge about another
persons unexpressed feelings or intentions. However, the doctrine does
seem to express not only an empathic-like respect for the autonomy of
other peoples minds, but also an acknowledgement of peoples
vulnerability to the intimate knowledge others might have of them.
From an ethnographic perspective, then, it is clear that empathic-like
like knowledge of others is rarely, if ever, considered an unambiguously
good thing, despite the positive connotations empathy has in many
European-American contexts.
The question of whether empathic-like attitudes are necessarily limited
to the more near and dear at the expense of those who are less similar,
less familiar, and less proximate remains an open question from an
ethnographic point of view. Of course there are many groups around the
world that do indeed act preferentially toward immediate kin. Yet this
preference may not be as limited and automatic as De Waal (2009),
Preston (2007), and others contend. Mageo (2011), for example, has
shown that the circle of people toward whom empathy is directed and
encouraged is much larger in community-oriented Samao than among
most middle-class Americans in the United States. And among Banabans
on Fiji, the circle is extended even further, to include almost any
genuinely forlorn and needy person, no matter what ethnicity or religion
(Hermann 2011). Further, there is much ethnographic evidence to
suggest that morally salient and motivating forms of empathy can be
and are extended to nonhuman animals and numinous beings as well.
While some of these extensions are based on relatively pure forms of
faith and imagination, many of them involve embodied cultural practices
such as dream interpretation that establish a face to whom empathy
may be directed, though not necessarily the flesh and blood one that de
Waal posits. The question of whether these culturally mediated faces are
as powerfully eliciting of empathic processes as are the flesh and blood
ones can only be answered by more direct and explicit comparisons
between the two.
The ethnographic evidence regarding the relative fallibility or infallibility
of empathy as a framework for moral evaluation and action is more
definitive. I have already mentioned that even where empathic attitudes
and behaviors are valued and encouraged, people often fear their
inaccuracy or misuse. There seems to be a relatively widespread
awareness that empathic-like feelings and processes can be easily
overridden by the empathizers own needs, fears, and concerns, leading
him or her to misinterpret the targets behavior or to confuse the targets
situation with his or her own. People such as the Toraja also recognize
that even in the best of circumstances, individuals differ in their
willingness or ability to empathize in culturally appropriate ways, even
though they might not attribute these differences to differences in
disposition or developmental experiences, the way an outside observer
might. Apart from these relatively innocent ways in which empathy may
be lost, suppressed, or (p.248) overridden, we have far too many
ethnographic examples, unfortunately, of people deliberately and self-
consciously denying empathy to other classes or types of persons for
political or economic reasons. Whether for more innocent or sinister
reasons, then, ethnographic evidence suggests that empathy may be a
highly fallible form of moral orientation, subject to disruptions and
countervailing influences of many different kinds.
None of this is to deny the importance of basic embodied processes of
mirroring, attunement, affective resonance, and perspective taking in
providing a scaffold for many forms of human sociality and
communication, including morality. And indeed, one of the primary
lessons from contemporary ethology and evolutionary studies is that
Adam Smith and David Hume were probably right in arguing that
socially oriented emotions and intuitions play a critical role in enabling
and promoting human sociality everywhere. But these foundational
intersubjective processes, as Battaly (2011) suggests, are probably best
thought of as involuntary capacities, or, when they are self-consciously
practiced and honed, as voluntary skills, not as morally virtuous
attitudes or sentiments in themselves. They can perhaps become
powerfully motivating social sentiments, of course, but only if people
become self-conscious of them, value them in themselves and others,
and make it politically and economically feasible for them to be
culturally elaborated into more marked, complex forms of social
knowing and awareness (Hollan 2012), rather than politically or
culturally suppressed, inhibited, or punished.
The anthropologist Robert Levy (1973) once argued that cognitive and
emotional states could be differentially heightened and made
experientially vivid by hypercognizing them, that is, by naming them,
labeling them, and bringing cultural and moral attention to them.
Conversely, such states could be experientially downplayed or elided by
hypocognizing them, that is, by not naming them, not labeling them,
and by not bringing cultural and moral attention to them. In village
Tahiti in the 1960s, anger, according to Levy, was hypercognized while
grief was hypocognized. Levy argued that this was because anger was an
extremely dangerous emotion in the small face-to-face communities of
Tahiti. By hypercognizing and bringing conceptual and symbolic
mediation to emotional states of anger, Tahitians brought heightened
social and self awareness to them, which made their open display more
threatening and therefore less likely to occur. By knowing anger well, so
to speak, Tahitians could manage it better. Prolonged grief, on the other
hand, was thought to interfere with and disrupt the casual attitude that
one ideally was expected to bring to interpersonal attachments. By
hypocognizing grief, Tahitians culturally elided it, depriving people of
the conceptual and linguistic resources necessary to know it and
experience it in a focused, explicit way. As a result, people might report
symptoms of physical illness such as head- or (p.249) stomach-ache in
the aftermath of a broken or lost attachment, but they rarely complained
of experiencing a focused or prolonged sense of grief per se. We can
certainly imagine that empathic processes become differentially
enculturated in a similar way, making them more or less central to a
communitys behavioral repertoire and more or less central to its moral
orientations.
Levy also noted that the cultural centrality or marginality of certain
emotions and experiential states could change over time. For example,
in 1960s village Tahiti, shame, relative to guilt, was still a highly salient,
hypercognized emotion that played an important role in local morality
and social control. When Levy asked people why they did they not
commit socially disapproved of behaviors, they invariably told him that
they did not do such things for fear of being caught and shamed, not
because the behaviors were inherently wrong or because they felt guilty
about committing such acts. Levy makes the point that in face-to-face
communities like village Tahiti, people were likely to be seen if they
committed disapproved of acts, so that is was unnecessary to
hypercognize other types of inhibitory emotions, such as guilt, when
shame remained such a powerful means of inhibition and social control.
As Tahiti changed, however, and became more a society of relative
strangers, Levy hypothesized that Tahitians too, like people in many
other modern, developed societies, would begin to hypercognize guilt
more, since it is an inhibitory emotion that relies on an internalized
audience for its motivational force and saliency, not an actual audience
of neighbors and friends, as with shame.
With these examples, Levy is pointing out that human behavioral and
emotional repertoires are not set in stone, not simple expressions of an
underlying human nature, but rather they are in dynamical relationship
with the social environment, both responding to changes in the social
world, but also initiating changes within it.3Although Levy made his
observations at a time when Tahitians were hypercognizing shame and
hypocognizing guilt, he could imagine a time when this pattern would be
reversedthough both shame and guilt remaining in dynamical
relationship with each other and with other elements of the social and
moral ecology. Empathic processes are also embedded in larger
behavioral and social ecologies, of course. Though they can be given
more or less moral valence, and perhaps even be made morally virtuous,
nowhere do they operate in a social or behavioral vacuum. They operate
in the context of, with and beside, other behaviors and social restraints.
This is important to remember because while I have underscored how
morally fallible empathy appears to be from an ethnographic
perspective, no other moral (p.250) orientation is any less subject to
disruptions and countervailing influences of various kinds. The ecology
of morality in any place or time is a complex, dynamic one. Empathic
processes can and do play an important role in these ecologies, but the
exact ways in which basic embodied capacities for attuning to others are
elaborated into more complex forms of empathy and related to other
social sentiments and behavioral repertoires still requires much more
ethnographic analysis and specification.

(1) . For more extended discussions of how the study of empathy in

anthropology has evolved over time, see Hollan and Throop (2008,
2011a).
(2) . Schismogenesis refers to patterns of progressive differentiation that may
emerge between people or groups. Bateson identified two basic types,
symmetrical schismogenesis, as when the display of aggression on the part of
person or group A elicits a similar display of aggression from person or
group B, leading to yet more aggression on the part of person or group A.
And complementary schismogenesis is when the display of aggression on the
part of person or group A elicits submissive displays on the part of person or
group B, which then elicits even more aggression from person or group A,
and so on.
(3) . Levy was a student of Gregory Bateson and was very much influenced by
his ideas about an ecology of mind and behavior (Bateson 1972).
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(p.297) Index
Note: Letter n followed by the locators refer to notes.
aggression, 2324, 33, 40, 45, 65, 68, 84, 100, 149, 221, 236, 245
inhibition of, 2930, 40, 212
altruism, 23, 26, 31, 3435, 41, 4346, 5152, 54, 60, 218, 22022, 224,
229
arguments against, 53
behavioral, 21518, 221
biological, 217
connection with morality, 56
dimensions of, 22425
empathy-induced, 4547, 4952, 5458
evolutionary, 4344
evolution of, 26, 34
failure of, 212, 21617, 219, 22223, 225, 22829
profile, 218, 220
psychological, 4344, 21012, 21623, 22526, 22829
second-level, 222
second-order, 219 see also empathy-altruism hypothesis; motivation,
altruistic
amygdala, 148, 152, 154
Andrews, Kristen, 26, 30
anger, 11, 18, 36, 6869, 75, 80, 95, 103, 107, 146, 14950, 15253, 168,
17576, 188, 191, 248
empathic, 1, 5, 8, 2526, 33, 76, 8387, 94, 98, 100, 106, 11718
animals, 194, 209, 217
nonhuman, 10, 30, 36, 123, 12526, 148, 242, 247
social, 19697
anterior insular cortex (AIC), 16, 16263
anthropology, 231, 23435
Antisocial Personality Disorder, 16 n.10, 65, 150 see also psychopathy
anxiety, 4, 9, 1415, 21, 60, 140, 14445, 14748
approbation/disapprobation, 28, 32, 1068, 166
Asperger syndrome, 17 n.11, 190, see also autism
association, direct-, 7273
association, verbally mediated, 74
arousal, emotional, 6, 52
attention, 1314, 17, 22, 46, 66, 68, 74, 76, 78, 9091, 9394, 105, 143,
158, 176, 186, 189, 232, 242, 248
autism, 14, 1718, 3536, 101, 142, 17382, 18687, 190, 192
cure for, 76
empirical research on, 174
hypotheses of, 19 see also Asperger syndrome
autist, 101 n.2 see also autism
Baron-Cohen, Simon, 17, 19, 99 n.1, 101 n.2
Barron, Shaun, 17
Basic Empathy Scale (BES), 22, 168
Bateson, Gregory, 245 n.2, 249 n.3
Batson, C. Daniel, 68, 13, 19, 2122, 2426, 28, 31, 3435, 38, 99, 169
70, 18788
Baumeister, Roy, 40
besire, 159
bias, empathic, 28, 76, 85, 9396, 10406, 108, 11921, 16970, 214,
240, 246
bias, in-group, 9394
bias, here-and-now see empathic bias
Blair, James, 1516, 2932, 3435, 142 see also Violence Inhibition
Mechanism
borderline personality disorder, 18, 138
Bryants Index of Empathy, 1, 20, 22
Buddha, Gautama, 136 see also Eightfold Path
Bundy, Ted, 142
callous-unemotional traits, 14041
Campbell, John, 189
Campbell, Joseph, 37
CAT scan, 92
categorical imperative, 54
Cleckley, Hervey, 13840, 147
cognition, 56, 13, 40, 56, 72, 173, 19596, 213
collectivism, 46, 53
common good, 5051, 13334
compassion, 1, 15, 20, 32, 39, 42, 50, 53, 5657, 59, 71, 7677, 80, 86, 90,
95, 146, 155, 16062, 166, 168,21415, 218, 22022, 232, 23537, 241,
246
link between empathy and, 156 see also sympathy
concern, empathic, 1, 57, 15, 18, 2122, 26, 4142, 4446, 49, 5153, 57,
67, 84, 11314, 138, 151, 153, 16163, 166, 168, 177, 183 see also
sympathy; Concern Mechanism
Concern Mechanism, 14 n.7, 3031
(p.298) conditioning/reconditioning, 7273, 75, 117, 224, 227
Conduct Disorder, 16 n.10, 141
consequentialism, 3738, 116, 157
contagion, emotional, 36, 9, 15, 20, 2324, 26, 151, 16061, 185, 195,
215, 23132
crying, contagious, 61, 161
crying, reactive, 4, 27
Cultural Transmission Theory (CT), 11719
Dark Side, 3637, 119
Darwall, Stephen, 33
Darwin, Charles, 26, 34, 41
Decety, Jean, 13, 16, 25
De Waal, Frans, 2, 5, 10, 26, 194, 20406, 232, 24042, 247
deontology, 157
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual V (DSM-V), 14041
disapprobation, see approbation/disapprobation
disgust, 97, 146, 14950, 159, 168, 191
empathic, 9, 11, 75, 85
distress, 2
empathic, 48, 28, 31, 33, 62, 7283, 8586, 95, 236
personal, 38, 1415, 16 n.10, 1819, 2125, 3031, 52, 6061, 66
67, 69, 93, 104, 119, 163, 166, 21415, 220, 24344
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, 15253
Down Syndrome, 142
Durrant, Russil, 24
effortful control, 6667 see also emotionality
egoism, 4344, 4647, 5051, 53, 218
Eightfold Path, 136
Einfhlung, 2 n.1, 160
Eisenberg, Nancy, 46, 8, 14, 1925, 30, 33, 3940, 99, 104
embarrassment, 17778
effects of, 12
empathic, 9
emotion recognition, 36
impairments in, 16
psychopathy and, 15051 see also facial expression recognition
emotionality, 30, 6667, 69, 104
emotional contagion, see contagion, emotional
empathy
affective, 13, 910, 1415, 1718, 20, 2224, 2627, 33, 99101, 161
basic, 184, 23233, 242
cognitive, 3, 11, 1617, 20, 2223, 26, 99101, 182, 195, 202, 207
cognitive impairment in, 16
combined, 100101
complex, 20, 220, 23335
dispositional, 18, 20, 2223
egocentric, 61
entangled, 19596, 202, 209
evolution of, 2627, see also altruism
global, 61
hedonic, 98, 104, 107, 116
ideal-regulated, 98, 105, 1112, 116, 120
immediate, 98, 108, 11319
male-female differences in, 1819
natural, 114, 11921
reactive, 100, 117
reenactive, 23233
self/other-focused, 99
situational, 2022, 24345
sufficient, 13037
truth-adjusted, 101 n.4
quasi-egocentric, 61
unregulated, 98, 104, 11314
war on, 71
ethics, 156, 21617
empathy and, 20609
normative, 97, 157
of care, 32, 3940, 119
practical, 157
virtue, 23335
ethnography, 236
of violence, 245
ethology, 30, 23031, 248
(p.299) facial expression recognition, 16, 19, 22, 7475, 125, 144, 151,
161, 18485
fear, 2122, 80, 88, 118, 140, 14748, 191
empathic, 9, 11, 1415, 25, 237
expression of, 16, 144, 146, 14849, 175, 202
impairments in, 15051
in children, 6768
fellow feeling, 2728, 195, 237
lack of, 237 see also sympathy
feminists, see feminism
feminism, 40
Feshbach, Seymour, 29
fMRI, 85, 152
Foucault, Michel, 234
Freud, Sigmund, 182, 187
Galilei, Galileo, 46
game theory, 50
Gandhi, Mahatma, 3536, 57
Garrett, K. Richard, 29
Geertz, Clifford, 232
Gods command/law, 3738, 142
Golden Rule, 52, 54
Goldie, Peter, 23, 18384, 191
Goldman, Alvin, 1012, 122
Good Samaritan, 42, 135
Grandin, Temple, 17
Graham, George, 29
Griffith Empathy Measure, 16 n.10
Gruen, Lori, 26, 30
guilt, 7, 17, 24, 27, 29, 33, 60, 68, 73, 85, 118, 138, 153, 162, 17678, 192,
221, 249
empathy-based, 83
lack of, 140, 143
Haidt, Jonathan, 20, 32, 39, 97, 118, 159, 209
Hallowell, Irving, 233
Hamlin, Kiley, 117
happiness, 4, 6, 69, 100, 13233, 146, 14950, 191
Hare, Brian, 200
Hare, Robert M., 12324, 139, 149, 151
harm, 20, 3032, 3436, 91, 100, 114, 124, 129, 132, 13435, 146, 153,
156, 158, 197, 209, 217, 231, 23738,24546
 aversion, 16667, 169
norms, 3739, 46, 54, 211
personal/impersonal, 14445
physical/emotional, 178
helping, 7, 2326, 4344, 62, 68, 70, 7577, 82, 84
behavior, 3031, 43, 60, 132, 204, 236
targeted, 203204
empathy-induced, 4445
response, 104
heuristic, 94, 233
Hobson, Jessica A., 17
Hobson, R. Peter, 17
Hoffman, Martin, 2, 6, 8, 10, 2728, 31, 33, 56, 6162, 117, 236
Hogans Empathy Scale, 20, 22, 23 n.12
Hollan, Douglas, 20
Holocaust, 72, 8182
Hrdy, Sarah Blaffer, 26
Hume, David, 13, 26 n.13, 2730, 32, 41, 74, 97, 10510, 11920, 13436,
158, 164, 166, 235, 248
Ickes, William, 196
ideal observer, 28 see also sympathetic impartial spectator
imagination, 1213, 5253, 74, 19192, 242, 247
empathic, 95, 24042
imagine-self, 13, 5253
imagine-other, 13, 5253 see also perspective taking
injustice, 39, 46, 79, 88, 9091, 95
feeling of, 8385, 87
victims of, 5657, 85 see also justice
Integrated Emotion Systems Model (IES), 14344
intelligence, 84
social, 197
internalism, 28, 3234
empirical, 32 n.19
(p.300) Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), 1, 222, 23 n.12, 168
Jesus, 105, 135
Johnson, Lyndon, 82, 87, 89, 90, 93
Jolly, Allison, 19799
judgment, moral, 34, 3539
justice, 58, 7172, 84, 9596, 111, 119, 146, 236
 fairness and, 8485
norms, 39
principles of, 5354 see also injustice
Kamisar, Yale, 90, 92
Kanner, Leo, 174
Kant, Immanual, 35, 5354, 100, 114, 15658, 16364, 209
Kauppinen, Antti, 2829, 40
Kennett, Jeanette, 3536
Kiehl, Kent, 16
Kielburger, Craig, 82
King, Jr., Martin Luther, 57
King Solomon, 5758
Kitcher, Philip, 212, 21620, 22325, 229
knowledge
empathic, 156, 23640, 24647
folk psychological, 233
moral, 119, 159
semantic, 152
Korsgaard, Christine, 209
Kozol, Jonathan, 57
Lamm, Claus, 8, 13, 28
Lenin, Vladimir, 87
Levy, Robert, 24849
Lewin, Kurt, 46
liberals/conservatives, 20, 39, 71, 89
liberty, 92, 96
Lipps, Theodore, 2 n.1, 73, 160
love-compassion-pity, 232, 237
Mageo, Jeanette, 241, 247
Maibom, Heidi, 21415
Majdandi, Jazminka, 8, 28
Marsh, Abigail, 16, 36, 14647, 151
McDougall, William, 41
medial cingulate cortex (MCC), 16263
metacognition
in apes, 19596 see also mindreading
metaethics, 97, 106
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 18486
Mill, John Stuart, 84
Miller, Paul, 2324
mimicry, 4, 7273, 185, 231
emotional, 117
motor, 161
neural substrate of, 75
mindreading, 11, 19496, 206, 209
deficiencies in, 17
low-level, 10
high-level, 12 see also simulation; theory of mind
mirror neurons, 1011, 17, 7576, 231
mirror neuron system, see mirror neurons
mirroring, 11, 123, 190, 248
Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ), 146
Morgan, C. Lloyd, 209
motivation
altruistic, see altruism
moral, 34, 38
egoistic, 24
natural selection, 75, 96
evolution by, 34
narcissism, 14, 18
Neo-Classical Explanatory Sentimentalism (NCES), 98, 11314, 11619
nervous system
autonomous, 30
sympathetic/parasympathetic, 149
neuroscience, 910, 19, 76, 190, 231
cognitive, 172
social, 13, 170
neurotypical, 17 see also autism
Nichols, Shaun, 23, 14 n.7, 3032, 35, 9798, 113, 11719, 154
Nucci, Larry, 3738
(p.301) Obama, Barack, 71
over-arousal, empathic, 8, 7679, 8284, 89
pain, 2, 11, 75
empathic, 9, 13, 25, 79, 85
expression of, 77
pariacqueductal gray area, 16
Patrick, Christopher, 14, 150
perception-action model, 2, 5, 10
perspective taking, 2, 6, 1012, 15, 1920, 22, 26, 29, 33, 52, 60, 65, 68,
72, 74, 86, 91, 99, 166, 183, 195, 20002, 21315, 21920, 222, 224, 226,
232, 244, 246, 248
personality trait, moral, 70
phenomenology, 18485
Pinker, Steven, 71, 96
Plato, 3738, 72
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, 138
pragmatism, 21617
Preston, Stephanie, 2, 5, 10, 240, 247
Prichard, James Cowles, 138, 141
principlism, 46, 50, 54
Prinz, Jesse, 27, 35, 38, 9798, 110, 113, 11620, 122, 13637, 158
projection, 12, 186
psychoanalysis, 18, 187, 231
psychology, 8, 4749, 102, 120
developmental, 172
folk, 161, 194, 23233
moral, 3940, 114, 168, 235, 246
social, 9, 25, 169
psychopath, see psychopathy
Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI), 15 n.8
psychopathy, 1416, 18, 25, 29, 30, 3236, 10001, 112, 13854, 165,
17273, 190
Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, 14, 15 n.8, 139
Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy, 1, 23
Rawls, John, 53
Rachels, James, 124
reactive barking, 4
Reagan, Ronald, 92
recidivism, 21011
psychopathy as a predictor of, 148
reciprocity, calculated, 20506
regulation, 33, 60, 107, 109, 112, 163
emotional, 25, 30 n.6, 40, 6667, 69, 9798, 10205, 117, 213, 223
24, 228
moral, 159
self-, 40, 102
sociomoral, 14 n.7
religion, 72, 81, 87, 125, 132, 135, 247
rights, 39, 142, 169
civil, 57, 8284, 87, 9596
constitutional, 92
legal, 85
property, 111 n.5
Risk-Need-Responsivity Model (RNR), 21011, 22324
Rush, Benjamin, 138
sadness, 4, 6, 9, 11, 27, 42, 68, 73, 80, 100, 118, 146, 14950, 15253, 162,
191, 218
empathic, 177, 220
expression of, 16, 22, 144
Scheler, Max, 6, 18485
schismogenesis, 245 n.2
sentimentalism
classical, 106, 112
moral, 235
neo-classical, see Neo-Classical Explanatory Sentimentalism
self, moral, 68, 70
serf, see serfdom
serfdom, 82, 8789 see also slavery
sex offenders, 16, 21, 23, 36, 21114, 216, 22123, 227, 229
shame, 7, 60, 177, 221, 249
simulation, see also high-level mindreading
offline, 1213
theory, 101, 17273, 184, 19091, 233
(p.302) Singer, Peter, 207
Singer, Tania, 13
Skelly, Laura, 16
skin conductance, 15, 21, 148
slave, see slavery
slavery, 76, 8182, 95
abolition of, 86, 134
opposition to, 57, 90 see also serfdom
Slote, Michael, 32, 9798, 11317, 240
Smith, Adam, 26 n.13, 27, 2930, 4142, 7374, 9798, 106, 10911, 120,
235, 248
Sober, Elliot, 6, 26, 4344, 101 n.4
Social Intelligence Hypothesis, 19697, 199
Socrates, 38 n.21, 72
Sontag, Susan, 82
Spencer, Herbert, 41
Spinrad, Tracy L., 40
startle reflex, 1415, 21
Sterelny, Kim, 199
stereotype, 18, 21, 74, 81
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 57, 82, 8586, 8890, 95, 134
Strawson, Peter, 100
Strum, Shirley, 208
Stueber, Karsten, 2 n.1, 184, 23233
surprise, 16, 17576, 19
sympathy, 18, 11, 14 n.7, 15, 2534, 3640, 48, 53, 5961, 6367, 69
70, 84, 95, 99, 101, 104, 10708,15556, 16062, 16668, 174, 18384,
194, 215, 232, 23435, 246
culture and, 20
deficiencies in, 14
dispositional, 24
expression of, 66
feelings of, 42, 68
male-female differences, 19
measures of, 18, 2023
pro-social behavior and, 98, 222
situational, 21, 24 see also empathic concern
sympathetic impartial spectator, 105 see also ideal observer
theory of mind, 13, 65, 142, 199200, 219 see also mindreading
theory theory, 190
threat-detection system, 25
tribalism, 13537
Titchener, Edward, 2 n.1
Trolley Dilemma, 14447, 153, 16667, 169
Tsar Alexander, 82, 88
Turgenev, Ivan, 8889
Ugazio, Giuseppe, 8, 28
Uller, Claudia, 201
utilitarianism, 50, 54, 144, 153, 15657, 16467, 16970
Veil of Ignorance, 5354
ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), 16, 165
violence, 23, 30 n.16, 79, 94, 142, 14546, 21416, 245
 (p.303) Inhibition Mechanism, 2931, 143
interpersonal, 138
per capita, 7071
physical, 78
sexual, 141
victims of, 31 see also aggression
Wallace, Anthony, 23536
Ward, Tony, 24
welfare, 6, 10, 3738, 41, 4647, 57, 82, 96, 142, 240
anothers, 12, 4, 37, 4243, 54, 162
consideration, 30, 37
justification, 14, 3435
ones own, 50
victims, 14243
Whitman, Walt, 90
Williams, Bernard, 37
Wilson, David Sloan, 6, 26, 4344, 101 n.4