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Key points
- Some scholars question the value of empathy.
- Ms. Frazier’s empathy for Mr. Floyd appears to have triggered her action.
- Moral behavior is complex and empathy may 'get the ball rolling.'
- Our species evolved a big social (empathic) brain from cooperative child-raising. Both seem to be on the wane.
It seems that most people would agree that in the last 10 minutes of George Floyd’s life, (former) police officer Derek Chauvin did not have empathy for Mr. Floyd, but the video recorder, Darnella Frazier, did.
Mr. Floyd’s suffering captured Ms. Frazier’s empathy and alerted her that it was a moral/ethical situation—something was wrong. Her interpretation of it as unjust and her motivation for justice led her to a monumental decision—the only thing she felt she could do to help out in the situation—to record it on her phone.
If empathy initiated her action, then why are a couple of scholars in philosophy and psychology raising questions about empathy, arguing that empathy misleads people’s decision-making?
Challenges to empathy
Psychologist Paul Bloom describes empathy as ‘feeling the feelings of another’ (what others call affective empathy). He notes several problems with this. First, feeling the feelings of every suffering person you meet would be exhausting. Second, empathy draws your attention like a spotlight and may limit your awareness of other events. Third, empathy is biased towards people who resemble you. Fourth, experiments show that empathy has a numeracy problem—it doesn’t increase with a greater number of suffering people and in fact is biased toward the suffering person in front of you, not the millions you cannot see. He concludes that empathy leads to stupid and unethical decisions.
Those of us who study moral behavior and moral education identify multiple ways ethical or moral action can go astray (e.g., Narvaez & Rest, 1995). Bloom is pointing out some ways this happens.
Let’s go through Bloom’s list. (1) He says that even with family members and friends, you shouldn’t feel their distress because you won’t be able to help them. Bloom seems to be focused on what has been called codependency, the lack of distinction between self and other in an emotionally fused manner. Yes, one can be overwhelmed by the feelings of others, which can be a signal of self-regulation issues and sometimes considered a mental health issue. Al-Anon is designed in part to help people build their boundaries so they do not get caught up in the feelings of others. (2) Empathy draws attention. Yes, that is what happened to Ms. Frazier in reaction to Mr. Floyd’s situation. But of course, much more needs to happen for a moral behavior to take place (see below). (3a) Empathy is biased. Sure. So are perceptual biases, anthropocentric reasoning, utilitarian reasoning … there are countless other biases. (3b) Empathy is oriented to people like you. This depends on one’s culture and upbringing. Rescuers of Jews in World War II did not react this way (Oliner & Oliner, 1988). First Nation groups have empathy for living beings generally, including animals, plants, rivers, mountains. (4) Affective empathy cannot deal with numbers. Sure, it is a face-to-face resonance. That’s why cognitive empathy, which Bloom calls “understanding,” is needed as well. Cognitive empathy requires knowledge about the other, understanding how they live and thrive. Empathy can be a starting point, but it’s not enough.
Interestingly, Bloom says that sharing positive emotions is a good thing, but not the negative feelings of others. But if it is good to feel the positive feelings, then empathy per se is not the problem. It’s the personal distress that occurs with feeling their negative feelings, something that C. Daniel Batson (2011) has pointed out in his research program.
Western philosopher Jesse Prinz also denigrates empathy. His definition of empathy combines feeling with, sympathy (feeling for), and personal distress (feeling overwhelmed), all with a cognitive twist (empathy is what you experience when reflecting on another’s emotion). This a disembodied definition (humans resonate with others in ways that don’t require reflection) and goes against longstanding research programs that separate out these different types of ‘empathy’ (e.g., Batson, 2011; Eisenberg, 2000).
Prinz agrees with all of Bloom’s points. Focusing on moral judgment, he argues that empathy is not a component, a necessary cause, a reliable epistemic guide, a foundation for justification, or the motivating force for moral judgments. Nothing to argue about here as morality is much more complicated than empathy alone. On its motivating force, as James Rest (1983) noted, some people are moved by a grimace, others need to see a punch before their empathy is activated. Empathy has notably diminished among college students over recent decades (Konrath et al. 2011).
Prinz thinks other emotions are better at motivating moral judgments: disgust, admiration, guilt, outrage.
Empathy is not enough for moral behavior
For ethical behavior to take place, empathy is only one of many tools needed. It is not used in isolation. There are multiple psychological factors that must occur for a moral behavior to take place. Empathy can start off the processes. It is good because it alerts us, it draws our attention to an ethical issue. Ms. Frazier’s attention was drawn to George Floyd because she had a sense of his suffering.
Much more must happen after attention is drawn. Four psychological processes have been identified (Rest, 1983; Narvaez & Rest, 1995). Ethical sensitivity involves moral perception—noticing a moral problem. This is needed to get the ball rolling. Empathy can be part of this. We must interpret the situation appropriately, including determining what role we can take. Ethical judgment: We must judge what would be the best, most moral/ethical action in the circumstance. Ethical motivation: We have to be motivated to take the most moral action despite competing interests. Ethical action: We must be able to carry it out—knowing the steps to take and have the perseverance to get it done. If any of the component processes fails, a moral behavior will not take place. So you could fail to notice a problem (sensitivity), fail to make a good decision, (judgment), prioritize something else (motivation), or lack the capacities to carry out the behavior (action).
Definitions matter here
One of the challenges in discussions of morality is that philosophers often focus on a third-person perspective about another’s action—was that a good or bad action? In developmental moral psychology, moral behavior is the focus. When discussing moral judgment, it has to do with decision making—what should be done? But it also includes sensitivity—what did you notice? Motivation—what do you wish to do? Action—do you know what steps to take and can you get them done? Thus, psychology takes a more complex view of morality than Western philosophy, which has long focused more on thinking than on feeling or action.
What is troublesome for the public
Most people don’t parse empathy and sympathy like scholars do. They mix them together. They also tend to mix in active concern for the other. To feel with another means to feel for them. The problem with scholars writing public posts or books with narrow definitions of empathy is that non-scholars take it the wrong way—they think they are referring to the empathy-sympathy-action fusion that most people do. Arguing to the public that empathy does not matter encourages callousness and an intellect-centered form of relating to one another.
Empathy may be key to humanity’s evolutionary story
Both scholars are concerned about “othering” if empathy is emphasized because people tend to have empathy for people like them. This is not a common human problem. In First Nations and other collectivist societies, a sense of oneness with others is felt and emphasized, sometimes even with non-humans (Levy-Bruhl, 2015). Western civilization is a differentiating, categorizing culture that separates everything from everything else; most societies in human existence did not do this (Bram, 2018).
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (2009), renowned anthropologist, attributes cooperative child-raising for the huge social brain that our species developed—a brain that includes empathy, mindreading (intersubjectivity), and expanded concern for others that characterize our species but not chimpanzees (chimps are not cooperative childraisers). (See an excellent review of Hrdy's work by PT blogger, Samuel Paul Veissière). Because it takes up to 18 million calories to raise a child to adulthood, mothers cannot provision their young alone. The evolution of our big brain, cooperative child-raising, and our genetic adaptation coevolved and until recently went hand in hand. The isolation of parents in child-raising today goes against this history, which, according to Hrdy, may lead away from the empathy, in the broadest sense, that helped our species thrive and adapt.
References
Batson, C.D. (2011). Altruism in humans. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Bram, M. (2018). A history of humanity. Delhi: Primus Books.
Eisenberg, N. (2000). Emotion, regulation, and moral development. Annual Review of Psychology, 51, 665-697. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.51.1.665.
Hrdy, S. (2009). Mothers and others: The evolutionary origins of mutual understanding. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Konrath, S. H., O'Brien, E. H., & Hsing, C. (2011). Changes in dispositional empathy in American college students over time: a meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15, 180-198.
Levy-Bruhl, L. (2015). How Natives think (L.A. Clare trans.). Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing.
Narvaez, D., & Rest, J. (1995). The four components of acting morally. In W. Kurtines & J. Gewirtz (Eds.), Moral behavior and moral development: An introduction (pp. 385-400). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Oliner, S. P., & Oliner, P. M. (1988). The altruistic personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe. New York: Free Press.
Rest, J. (1983). Morality. In J. Flavell & E. Markham (Eds.) Cognitive Development, from P. Mussen (Ed.) Manual of Child Psychology, Vol. 3 (pp. 556-629). New York: Wiley.
