Question I'm a psychology student with a question about ethics: Is empathy ESSENTIAL to morality. Could a person without the capacity for empathy still be a morally good person? (Note that I am not asking whether empathy is morally useful.) Psychopaths are often described as lacking empathy, and this is often offered up as an explanation for their immoral behavior, so one might be tempted to use them as evidence that empathy is necessary for morality. This, however, strikes me as a bit fast and loose because in addition to emotional deficiencies, psychopaths also show a remarkable lack or underdevelopment of practical reason. It may also be worth asking whether empathy can be used in immoral ways. A skilled torturer, for instance, might be a more effective torturer if she or he can accurately channel, measure, and thus manipulate the emotional pain of a victim. Or con artists may use empathy to better read a mark, and so on. One might counter that when we empathize, we further react with some degree of care or sympathy. But this also seems inaccurate. Sympathy, for instance, seems to involve a kind of well-wishing for the other. It is a third person emotion that involves feeling something for another; feeling what another ought to feel, but may not actually feel. Empathy on the other hand is a first person emotion; a kind of tuning-in to the emotional of another, feeling what they do feel, rather than what they should feel. Is this kind of emotion essential for morality? Can it hinder morality? Would we be better off, or necessarily immoral without it? (Also, is this a common question in moral philosophy?)

Accepted:

May 12, 2011