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1 Are Empathy and Morality Linked? Insights from Moral Psychology, Social and Decision Neuroscience, and Philosophy
| Content Provider | CiteSeerX |
|---|---|
| Author | Majd, Jasminka Lamm, Claus |
| Abstract | Empathy and morality have an important yet very complex relationship. This complexity is partly due to the a) multifaceted nature of empathy and b) our insufficient knowledge about the nature of morality. In this chapter, we first discuss the philosophical debate and theoretical views considering morality to be either purely emotional or purely rational. After illustrating the shortcomings of both views, we will argue that the most plausible view is the one allowing morality to have elements from both emotion and reason. We then focus on empathy, using empirical data from social neuroscience and psychology to define it as belonging to the realm of emotions, and differentiating it from other social emotions such as sympathy or compassion. The first two sections allow us to construct a framework in which we will analyze the relationship between morality and empathy. Using this framework we review studies in moral psychology and decision neuroscience to make the case that empathy is but one constituent of morality. We argue that empathy, like other emotions, often motivates us to act in a certain way, although the moral appropriateness of the motivated behavior depends on the context. For instance, empathy may motivate a person to help others in need, but it may also result in unfair behavior that favors ingroup members. Thus, although empathy may affect morality in providing information about the emotional reactions of the people affected by an action and judment, whether empathy motivates judgments that are in accordance with moral principles depends on the contextual circumstances in which an agent makes them. 2 |
| File Format | |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
