Who needs empathy? A response to Goldie's arguments against empathy and suggestions for an account of mutual perspective-shifting in contexts of help and care1

1.  A first version of this paper was presented at the Dutch Society for Analytical Philosophy (VAF) conference, Free University Amsterdam, 31 March 2006.

Abstract

According to an influential view, empathy has, and should have, a role in ethics, but it is by no means clear what is meant by ‘empathy’, and why exactly it is supposed to be morally good. Recently, Peter Goldie has challenged that view. He shows how problematic empathy is, and argues that taking an external perspective is morally superior: we should focus on the other, rather than ourselves. But this argument is misguided in several ways. If we consider conversation, there is no need to see an opposition between a focus on the other and on ourselves. I propose to shift the perspective of the discussion towards the needs of those who are supposed to benefit from empathy, and to study how people communicate their imaginative processes towards their receivers. I end with an exploration of theoretical resources for an account of mutual perspective-shifting.

Keywords:

• Empathy
• Perspective-shifting
• Care
• Goldie
• Nussbaum
• Habermas

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the organisers of the January 2006 workshop on empathy at Delft University of Technology, and of the 2004 Knowledge and Imagination Conference at the Free University of Amsterdam, two stimulating events which inspired me to write this paper. I am particularly grateful to Peter Goldie and Tara Gilligan for their exciting papers and challenging arguments. Tara Gilligan's comments on a first version of this paper were also helped me greatly me to clarify my position in the discussion about empathy.

Notes

Notes

1.  A first version of this paper was presented at the Dutch Society for Analytical Philosophy (VAF) conference, Free University Amsterdam, 31 March 2006.

2.  Gilligan also seems to assume that empathy involves adopting someone else's beliefs and dispositions, and thus adjusting your own beliefs and values (2004). The danger of what she calls ‘egocentric’ imagining, then, is that we can think that we have adjusted our beliefs and values to reflect those of someone else, whereas in reality we mirror our own values (egocentric) or even fail to reflect anyone else's views.

3.  It seems to me that moral norms and principles are needed as well, but I will not further develop this point here.

4.  See also Nussbaum's argument in Frontiers of justice (2006).

5.  For example, Gilligan asks if it is really the case that we can only feel compassion if we can imagine ourselves suffering as another does (Gilligan, 2003).

6.  See also, for instance, Sara Ruddick's claim in Maternal thinking that we must let attention dwell upon the other (Ruddick, 1989, p. 122).