Agency and surprise: learning at the limits of empathic‐imagination and liberal egalitarian political philosophy

Abstract

Liberal egalitarians have been wary of being orientated by the empathetic understanding of others lest it offends the separateness of persons. This worry can be overcome by embracing second‐order as well as first‐order empathetic‐imagination, while doing so strengthens liberal‐egalitarian claims to treat all with equal concern and respect. ‘First‐order’ empathic‐imagination, which accesses objective knowledge about a person’s experience, is a necessary but not sufficient part of relating to others as agents. ‘Second‐order’ empathic‐imagination, encompassing a ‘disposition of surprise’ at an agent’s ability to have a valued life contrary to what is normally and reasonably expected, should also be encouraged. This disposition accepts that making fundamental mistakes in empathic‐imagination is inevitable, but by being disposed to recognize these as mistakes a person is more open to understanding and identifying with ‘disadvantaged others’ who are agents. As a result, policy‐makers and practitioners must recognize a potential tension between promoting social systems that redistribute resources and the image those defined as ‘worse‐off’ hold of themselves. Such interventions need to be sensitive to the positive image those they view as disadvantaged may hold of themselves, while nevertheless recognizing their entitlement to resources to improve their condition.

Keywords:

• social justice
• separateness of persons
• selfhood
• Rawls
• liberal egalitarianism
• social movements

Acknowledgements

Parts of this paper were presented to the Priority in Practice workshop at the University College London (UCL) in September 2005. So many thanks are due to the participants for their contributions, most notably Jo Wolff, Chris Bertram, and Catriona McKinnon. Other parts of this paper were also presented to The Centre for the Study of Social Justice at the University of Oxford in May 2006. Again, I benefited considerably from formal and informal discussions with participants, most notably, Bill Galston, Stuart White, Larry Mead, Adam Swift and Andrew Reeve. I am also very grateful to colleagues at the University of Wales who commented extensively on earlier drafts of the paper – namely, Gideon Calder and Dave Morgans – as well as to members of the philosophy colloquium at the University of Lampeter where I was invited to speak in February 2006. Needless to say, I take full responsibility for any of the arguments presented here.

Notes

1. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for raising this question.

2. Again, I am grateful to an anonymous referee for highlighting this point.