Pluralistic Conceptualizations of Empathy

Pluralistic Conceptualizations of Empathy
Author(s): Mark Fagiano

Source: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 30, No. 1 (2016), pp. 27-44
Published by: Penn State University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jspecphil.30.1.0027
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jsp
Mark Fagiano
emory university
abstract: This paper addresses recent philosophical debates concerning the moral
significance of empathy as well as the problems we face in defining empathy. Noting
the practical inefficiencies of narrow conceptualizations of empathy, I argue that we
ought to adopt broad notions of empathy that are informed by multiple and pluralistic
conceptualizations of this phenomenon as they have been articulated throughout
history and within different academic disciplines. Broad definitions of empathy,
furthermore, offer us a sufficient amount of generality for observing and analyzing the
multidimensionality of empathic experiences within a fundamentally relational world.
keywords: empathy, relational, pluralism, Einfhlung, morality
Imagine you are driving up a long and winding road in the mountains. It is
nighttime; there are no streetlights or traffic lights, no moon illuminating
the sky, and barely shining through a few clouds, the faint, flickering stars
above grant you only a fraction of light to see the path ahead. The quiet,
serene scene of this moonless, cool night coupled with the sweet scent of
pine reminds you of the wonders and beauty of nature.
Then, unexpectedly, as you begin to steer around a sharp turn in the
lane, flashing red and blue lights of emergency vehicles and police cars
temporarily blind you. Once your eyes adjust to this onslaught of light, you
see that rescue workers are quickly descending into the ravine below. You
journal of speculative philosophy, vol. 30, no. 1, 2016
Copyright 2016 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
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mark fagiano
pull your car over and run to the edge of the road. You look down. It is too
dark to see anyone, but you hear faint sounds of people moaning in pain.
You hear another sound, a grunt, and then another, a scream of pain, and
finally, you hear someone whisper with a small puff of breath, Help us ...
please.
Suddenly, flashlights illumine the scene below, and you see some
people struggling near a mangled car. You become mesmerized with the
situation, and everything comes into focus. The rescue workers are trying
to save a man and his daughter, who are unable to make it up to the road
alone. To make matters worse, you see that the force of gravity is taking
these two helpless victims toward another cliff edge, a very steep cliff edge,
and if the emergency responders do not get to them fast, they will fall to
their deaths.
Then, in an instant, your body becomes tense, your heart rate increases,
and you unconsciously mimic the mans expression of fear upon his face.
You can easily read the man and his daughters desperate thoughts as you
imagine what it would be like to be these people in this harrowing situation.
You watch the events unfold as the rescue workers act quickly and ably to
save them. One of the paramedics reaches out for the mans outstretched
hand as she carefully positions herself upon the slope of the mountainside.
The situation is looking terribly hopeless though, as the man is finding
it difficult to hold onto his daughter and to reach for help at the same time.
But then, after the child screams, Daddy, help, he musters everything
within him, and with a grunt and a burst of energy he manages to gain
ground in order to grab the rescuers hand. The paramedic, tapping into
her inner strengths and will, drags the victims up to safety. When they
finally make it to the road, everyone rejoices and celebrates, and the little
girl, tears running down her face, leaps into her fathers arms.
In which part of this story did you experience empathy? According to
many definitions of empathy, throughout the history of being playful with
this word, you experienced empathy within multiple parts of the story. For
instance, when you were appreciating nature while driving your car, you
empathized with the poetic dimensions of naturean activity that Novalis
believed was a remedy for the effects overly scientific interpretations of
nature have upon us.1 And while you did this, you felt into the objects of
your surroundings, and you experienced the type of empathy (Einfhlung)
that Robert Vischer described as a projection of the body and soul . . .
into the form of any object ([1873] 1994, 92). When your body tensed,
pluralistic conceptualizations of empathy
29
your heart rate increased, and you mimicked the fathers facial expression,
you experienced empathic emotional contagion, empathic distress, and
empathic mimicry (Batson 1991; de Waal 2009, 6569; Lipps 1903; Wisp
1987). You also experienced empathic accuracy and empathy as a type of
mind reading when you had a clear picture of the thought processes of the
victims (Ickes 1993, 1997, 2003, 6570; Rogers 1957; Stueber 2006, 519,
202); and when you imagined what it would be like to be in their situation,
you experienced empathy as perspective taking (Nussbaum 2001, 302;
Ruby and Decety 2001). Last, you experienced empathic concern (Batson
1991; Hoffman 1981) in the story as well, even though you did nothing to
help the victims.
Leaving the first few types of empathy aside for a moment, is this
last type of empathy, that is, empathic concern, itself a moral good?
Some scholars believe that this type of empathy is necessary for moral
development (Eisenberg et al. 1994; Hoffman 2000), but are mere feelings
of care andconcernmorally good? One could feel empathic concern and
care for the thousands of unarmed black men who have been shot dead by
police officers or self-appointed neighborhood watch captains, and one can
also be concerned about the fact that a majority of these armed authorities
do not stand trial for their actions, but are our inner empathic reflections
and sentiments about these events morally good? Is empathy, however
defined, necessary for morality?2 And what ought we to do, if anything,
about all of these different conceptualizations and definitions of empathy?
Are all of these different experiences I have described really empathy? Is
it not the case that a process such as imaginatively simulating another
persons psychological states is quite different from our experiences
of emotional contagion when, for example, we have an immediate and
involuntary emotional sensation from seeing a spider crawl up another
persons arm? Yet these two phenomena and many others are sometimes
called empathy, and this seems to breed confusion.
Recent philosophical works have addressed questions about the moral
status of empathy as well as the apparent confusion that arises from the
multiple definitions of empathy I have described above. Regarding the
former, the philosopher Michael Slote has argued that empathy, as a type
of emotional contagion, is the cement of the moral universe, which
helps us to constitute moral approval and disapproval as well as to make
sense of moral claims, utterances, and judgments. Another philosopher,
Amy Coplan, addresses what she senses is a great deal of confusion
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within academic discourses and suggests that we need to adopt a narrow

conceptualization of empathy, what she calls real empathy. Although the
arguments that support both of these philosophers claims are rich with
sound empirical research in neuroscience and psychology, the definitions
of empathy that undergird their arguments contribute to and reinforce
closed systems of understanding empathy as a phenomenon and do not
take into account a number of important practical, relational, and moral
considerations, considerations that arise by taking the contexts of our
experiences seriously and by paying close attention to historically thick and
pluralistic conceptualizations of the term empathy.
Michael Slote: Empathy as the Cement of the Moral Universe

Taking his cue from the moral sentimentalist tradition, Michael Slote
defines empathy by contrasting it with sympathy. For Slote, empathy
involves having the feelings of another (involuntarily) aroused in ourselves,
as when we see another person in pain (2010, 15).3 Sympathy, for Slote,
is the feeling for someone, for example, when we feel for someone who
is experiencing pain. A conclusion one can draw from this distinction is
that we can experience empathy without sympathy and we can experience
sympathy without empathy. For example, you could feel my pain if I were
to step upon a four-inch nail without shoes by feeling into my experience,
but if I were attempting to rob you as the nail entered the bottom of my
foot, you probably would not feel for (sympathize with) me. Similarly, one
could sympathize with me, caring deeply for my well-being, without feeling
(empathizing with) my pain. For example, you could feel for or sympathize
with a friend who is depressed or humiliated without having the feeling of
depression or humiliation involuntarily aroused within you.
Empathy, says Slote, is the cement of the moral universe for it helps
to create something like moral approval and disapproval, and this is crucial for understanding what moral claims, utterances, and judgments
mean. Specifically, empathy as a moral cement helps us to account for
the meaning of terms like right and wrong by making use of a new kind of
reference-fixing, one that involves empathy and that is based on the phenomena of approval and disapproval (Slote 2010, 27). Such a new kind of
reference-fixing, which Slote bases partially but not wholly upon Kripkes
work Naming and Necessity (1980), allows us to explain moral terms and
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judgments by comparing and contrasting them with our understanding of

terms like red and water. And following Humes general account but moving beyond it, Slote sees empathy as a mechanism that allows our moral
approval and disapproval to focus on moral agents rather than on the consequences of their actions (2010, 33; emphasis added). When the actions of
agents reflect concern for . . . the well-being . . . of . . . others, empathic
beings will feel warmly or tenderly toward them, and such warmth and
tenderness empathically reflect the empathic warmth or tenderness of the
agents (Slote 2010, 3435). Contrarily, according to Slote, If a persons
actions toward others exhibit a basic lack of empathy, then empathic people
will tend to be chilled (or at least left cold) by those actions, and . . . those
(reflective) feelings toward the agent constitute moral disapproval (2010,
35). Slote suggests that this account of moral approval and disapproval does not
presuppose moral judgment, though it contributes to our understanding of
what moral utterances and judgments mean and helps us to locate the role
empathy plays in the formation of the moral universe.
Slotes argument is much more detailed than this, but his contention that having the feelings of others aroused involuntarily within us (i.e.,
empathy) is the cement of the moral universe seems to be a nonrelational
account of empathy torn from the complexities of experience. One could
imagine quite easily certain contexts and circumstances in which empathic
persons would morally disapprove of the actions of agentswho show
concern for the well-being for otherswhenever such an empathic persons judgment finds the intentions, aims, and purposes of such agents to
be devious, deceitful, or manipulative. If I, as an empathic person, were to
witness an agent empathizing with you and showing concern for you, but
Iknew that such a person aimed to manipulate you for his or her own benefit, it would be odd for me to say that I morally approve of or feel warmth
toward the agents actions. Or within another context, an empathic person
could be left cold after witnessing someone showing concern and warmth
toward another if such an empathic person were to judge such showers of
warmth to be undeserved and nepotistic.
It is clear from these examples that empathy defined as having the
feelings of another (involuntarily) aroused in ourselves is a morally neutral phenomenon, which can be used for various purposes. Depending
upon the context within a given experience and the consequences of our
actions, then, empathy is both the cement of certain moral universes and
the solvent for others. Think of a torturer who needs to have the feelings of
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the tortured aroused within him or her in order to get an adequate sense
of the amount of pain experienced as well as the efficacy of the torturing.
Even when empathy operates as the cement, our acts of empathizing are
biased and partial (Slote notes this but does not elaborate upon it), and we
often have more empathy for the suffering and pain of those similar to us
(Gutsell and Inzlicht 2010; Xu et al. 2009). Empathy-induced acts of altruism, furthermore, within certain contexts are unfair, immoral, and unjust
(Batson et al. 1995). In short, context matters. But Slotes argument for
empathy as moral cement does not take context seriously enough, for by
focusing on agential empathy alone, and excluding the possible significance of the consequences of the agents actions, the full breadth and scope
of our contextualized experiences are not considered.
Taking both context and consequences seriously, is any particular
mode of empathizing itself morally relevant apart from the concrete and
recognizable social actions it either produces or inspires? One could say
thatour empathic thoughts and feelings are themselves moral, but what
follows from such a claim? If thoughts and feelings are good, pleasurable,
or evil, what moral status do they have apart from the relations or
effect(s) they have in social space and whether or not they produce some
sort of recognizable consequences between persons? In the story with
which I began this work, you did nothing to help the victims, but you still
experienced the feelings of others (involuntarily) aroused within you. Could
you say, later, when you retold your version of the events to your friends and
family, that your observation of this event was morally significant?
Amy Coplan: A Narrow Conceptualization of Empathy

Slotes definition of empathy resembles, if not precisely mirrors, what Amy
Coplan calls emotional contagiona phenomenon that she argues must be
excluded from the category of empathy. Such an exclusion is based on her
belief that broad and all-encompassing views of empathy (e.g., Preston and
de Waal 2002) take us in the wrong direction and that we need to adopt
a narrow conceptualization of empathy in order to understand it better
(Coplan 2014, 5). According to Coplan, empathy (or what she calls real
empathy) is a complex imaginative process through which an observer
simulates another persons situated psychological states while maintaining
clear self-other differentiation (2011, 44). Under her conceptualization,
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empathy has three key features: affective matching, other-oriented

perspective taking, and clear self-other differentiation. And though she
admits that other processes that are called empathy are important, she contends that we ought to think of empathy only according to this notion of
empathy, that is, real empathy. Coplan draws distinctions between this
real empathy and two other processes that are often conceived as empathy,
namely, what she calls pseudo-empathy and emotional contagion.
Accordingly, pseudo-empathy, as a self-oriented mode of perspective
taking, ought to be clearly distinguished from real empathy (i.e., otheroriented perspective taking) because the former, as an attempt to imagine
what we would think, feel, and desire if we could experience the position of
another, is often a projection of our own biases rather than an understanding
of the experiences of another.4 Emotional contagion, as the tendency to
automatically mimic and synchronize expression, vocalizations, postures,
and movements with those of another person, and, consequently, to
converge emotionally (Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson 1994, 15354),
involves what is referred to as a low-level psychological and bodily
process that is an automatic, involuntary bottom-up process occurring
subcortically whenever we perceive the emotions of others. But, according
to Coplan, this low-level process is both conceptually and empirically
distinct from the high-level processes of other-oriented perspective
taking,that is, real and genuine empathy.5 These twoprocessesthat is, a
low-level, bottom-up process and a high-level, top-down processare often
referred to as emotional empathy (affective empathy) and cognitive
empathy, respectively, though as Coplan notes, these distinctions are
often conflated.6
It is true that empathy-based terms are used for a wide array ofpurposes
and that such terms are often conflated with one another. But what practical
difference would it make if everyone used the term empathy only to refer
to what Coplan calls real empathy? I think that one practical difference
for Coplan lies in her assessment of recent neuroscientific studies that,
she believes, suggest that real empathy is the only process that provides
experiential understanding of another person (2011, 58). But how would
demand for and acceptance of a narrow conceptualization of the term
empathy help us to understand the experiences of others more readily than
an adoption of multiple historical conceptualizations of empathy that give
us greater access to experience itself? Moreover, although she (2011, 59)
mentions them in a footnote, Coplan does not give much credence to other
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studies that challenge the distinctions she makes (Gazzola, Aziz-Zadeh,

and Keyser 2006; Pfeifer et al. 2008). Another practical difference for
the distinctions Coplan (2014, 5) makes is based on the fact that certain
empirical studies in cognitive neuroscience show that what she calls
pseudo-empathy, emotional contagion, and real empathy are distinct as
observable bodily and psychological processes and that by following her
analytic distinctions future scientific studies can shed the haze of ambiguity
that often surrounds the study of empathy.
But it does not seem likely that Coplans distinctions between these
processes will be adopted uniformly (I do not think that scientists are
waiting with bated breath for philosophers to provide them with analytic
distinctions). Moreover, by defining real empathy as other-oriented
perspective taking and affective matching, coupled with a clear self-other
differentiation, Coplan seems to favor cognitive, affective, reflective, and
reasoning processes without considering the context of a given form of
experience and the conceivable consequences of our actions in experience.
And though her categorical distinctions are certainly heuristic for labeling
what are observed as distinct neuroanatomical processes, it does not follow
from this that our experiences of these processes are distinctnor do such
analytic distinctions get us any closer to uncovering a real mode of
empathy. Stated another way, though Coplans conceptualized divisions
of empathy are helpful for understanding brain activity, the noting and
analysis of such processes involves what William James (1996, 253) called
a supposition of arrest drawn from the flow, stream, and process of both
consciousness and experience. Thus, Coplans distinctions, as distinctions
of thought, are not only a narrowing of the empathy concept but also a
narrowing of empathic experiences.

Despite the well-conceived arguments of these philosophers, who aim to
make the idea of empathy clearer by narrowing its definition, I suggest
that we ought to conceptualize empathy as a pluralistic phenomenon
and term and to adopt a broad definition for practical purposes.7 Such
a conceptualization of empathy requires that we take under serious
consideration what has been termed empathy throughout history and
within different academic disciplines in order to locate the instrumental
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value of different types of empathy within experience.8 Slote, Coplan, and

others who stipulate what they mean by empathy do so for certain purposes
and to reach different ends, but by implicitly excluding how others have
understood empathy, they unavoidably select particular experiential
relations connected with their conceptualizations/definitions of empathy
and exclude other experiential relations. However, if we were to adopt a
broad conceptualization of empathy and accentuate the plural voices of
history, which have described different modes of empathy in relation to a
variety of experiential circumstances, we would be invited to take seriously
the context of such circumstances. And since different contexts within
experience call for different conceptualizations and acts of empathy that
help us to achieve a variety of ends, to say that a singular definition or
phenomenon of empathy is real, helpful, detrimental, ideal, good, evil,
moral, or even cement-like apart from a context within experience is to
ignore a variety of aims, purposes, interests, and consequences we find
within experience itself.9
Thinking of empathy as a pluralistic phenomenon and term also invites
us to consider some questionable trends in the study of empathy within different disciplines. One such trend, the separation of empathy into affective
and cognitive types, is rather disturbing in that it divides our feelings and
judgments intofundamentallyemotional or cognitive experiences. But
by conceiving of empathy as a pluralistic phenomenon and a historically
rich term, one is able to reject this dizzying distinction, which is parasitic
upon the dying, but apparently not yet dead, dualism between emotion and
reason. Furthermore, we are able to note that before it became fashionable
among psychologists, some theorists of empathy refused to divide empathy
in this way. Take, for example, Herder ([1774] 1964), who used the verb sich
einfhlen (to empathize) to describe our ability to understand sympathetically the similaror radically differentexperiences of others through the
process of imaginatively feeling into (sich hineinfhlen) the time, place, and
history of a people. According to Herder, then, understanding and affect
operate together in our experiences.
Welcoming multiple historical conceptualizations of empathy also
helps us to recognize how various modes of empathic sense are useful within
various contexts of experience and the process of time itself. Acceptance of
the affective and cognitive distinction, on the contrary, restricts the boundaries of such usefulness by forcing us to think about empathy as either
emotional/affective or cognitive/reflective. This distinction also commits
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scholars to thinking of empathy apart from the flow, process, and context
of experience and, quite often, only according to different neuroanatomical processes within the body. These commitments disregard not only
empathic acts and their unique manifestations in the external world but
also the complex and relational dynamics within the body, complicated
dynamics that Jean Decety has explained quite succinctly: In reality, empathy, like other social cognitive processes, draws on a large array of brain
structures and systems that are not limited to the cortex but also include
subcortical pathways, the brainstem, the regulation of the autonomic nervous system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis . . . , as well as endocrine systems that regulate bodily states, emotion, and reactivity (Decety
and Michalska 2012, 169).10
Another disconcerting trend in scholarly discourses is how the notion
empathy is quite commonly described as a relation between a concerned
agent and the pain, distress, and/or psychological disorders of others.11
This dominant trend, as an exercise of discursive power, shapes moral
discourse according to downward psychological movements of empathic
sensing, which (defined as projections of moral concern or care bestowed
upon weaker persons by empowered persons) are also forms of social
power that structure moral discourse. Specifically, these two dynamics of
power form and limit the parameters of moral discourse by clothing positive
interactions between persons, such as prosociality or helping behavior, in
the terms of such dynamics of power (i.e., the pain, distress, or disorders
of others) as well as the relation between a stronger helping agent and a
person in need. Why is it that the study of empathy among psychologists
has focused, to a large degree, on these dynamics of our experiences
rather than on more extraordinary, beautiful, and radiant qualities of our
relationships with others? What would happen in the world if such notions
as allophilia and symhedonia shaped the study of empathy rather, or more
commonly, than the notions of pain, distress, and disorder?
Now, these dynamics of power, which I am referring to as a second
trend in the study of empathy, are linked to the first trend of dividing empathy into affective and cognitive types in that each of these trends is a consequence of the historical rise of the discipline of psychology in the twentieth
century.12 There is nothing intrinsically wrong with these trends outside
of a given context; but by looking for and adopting historically rich conceptualizations of empathy, we may begin to paint a picture of empathy as
a moral sense apart from the therapeutic and pastoral-minded models of
psychology.
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By moral sense here I am not claiming that such a sense is necessarily

reliant upon a system of morals or preconceived aims; rather, this term refers
to the emerging process of sensing within the immediacy of experience
and the making of moral judgments. To understand how this moral sense
(as a component of different types of empathy) functions within different
experiences requires that we include other contexts in which such a sense
is used, and this further demands of us that we extend our understanding of
empathy beyond interpersonal relations and consider how we have empathy
for objects and empathy for the relations between things.13
To have empathy for objects might sound strange to the contemporary
ear, but with a turn to the traditions of German romanticism, aestheticism,
and philosophy, we find that thinking about empathy (Einfhlung) in this
way was quite common within these traditions. Though the meaning of
empathy varied, thinkers such as Herder, Lotze, Novalis, Robert Vischer,
and Frederick Robert Vischer often described this act of empathy as a feeling into some object(s), what many today would call a type of projective
empathy. For Herder, to feel and understand the experiences of others
accurately (if this is possible), we must feel into the objects related to
the experiences of others. Feel yourself into everything, he advises; for
only then will you be on your way to understanding the world ([1774]
1891, 503). The philosopher and logician Rudolph Lotze (1856, 584) also
described empathy as our ability to feel ourselves into things (e.g., a mussel fish, a tree, or a building) by projecting the life of our imaginations into
their forms. Robert Vischer ([1873] 1994, 92) coined the term Einfhlung
(empathy), which he defined as the unconscious projection of ones body
and soul into the form of an object. And Frederick Robert Vischer ([1887]
1922), following the interests of his son Robert, used the term Einfhlung
to signify a mode of symbolism that involved the introduction of a human
soul into what is nonpersonal, which he believed was a necessary process
for understanding artworks, for example, paintings and sculptures.
These plural conceptualizations of empathy broaden the parameters
and scope of different acts of empathizing with others and thus provide
room for considering a variety of moral sensibilities. An additional benefit
of accepting this object-focused type of empathy is that it invites us to
consider the highly relational nature of our experiences as well as our
contextualized interactions with objects, persons, and their relations.
Think of your own interpretations of and interactions with objects
of art. Feeling into a work of art is a highly complex rational, emotive,
contemplative, and relational process that is colored by both the breadth
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and the context of your experience. For instance, the projection of your
sensibilities into van Goghs Starry Night involves a complex intermingling
of emotion and reason shaped by the context of the act (among other
things) and your knowledge of art. And you could imagine how both the
context and the complexity of such an act would be further intensified if
you were to feel into this work alongside a friend who, say, has written a
book on van Gogh. For in such a case, a dyadic relationship between you
and the artwork has turned into a triadic one among you, the object, and
your friend, which involves both object-oriented and interpersonal modes
of empathic sensing.
Think of another example. If I am observing a performance of Mozarts
Don Giovanni, I might experience an array of different types of empathy
directed at persons, objects, and their relations. For instance, if I involuntarily catch the emotions of a soprano who was unable to hit a high note,
at the same time I could be experiencing empathy as perspective taking by
imagining the conductors frame of mind when he chose to interpret the
score in one way rather than another. But I might also experience empathy
for objects by feeling into the sounds of the music or the timbre of a performers voice or the relations between the sounds and the voices. Imight
also experience a combination of other modes of empathy, simultaneously
or in succession, as they are directed toward objects, persons, and their
relations. For example, I could be experiencing the following empathic
thoughts, sensations, and interpretations either simultaneously or in succession: What did Mozart intend to convey musically while he was writing
the score for a given scene (perspective taking)? How did the first violinist
interpret Mozarts intention for this scene as she began to play (empathy
for the relation between Mozarts intentions and the creation of sound)?
When the audience felt into the sound of the violin (projective empathy)
and its relation to other instruments (empathy for the relations between
sounds), did they sense that the first violinist captured Mozarts intentions
(an imaginative simulating of the relation between Mozarts intentions, the
relations of sounds, and the performance of the first violinist)? This thick
description of objects, persons, and relations compels me to believe that the
complexity of these experiences cannot be adequately grasped by narrowing what we mean by empathy or by assuming that the moral potency of
our empathic sensibilities is always interpersonal.
In addition to providing insight into the multidimensional and
relational character of experience, adopting historically rich and plural
39
conceptualizations of empathy also expands our moral sensibilities as

we empathize with other living creatures. For now that we have a basic
understanding of the ways we empathize with objects, people, and
their relations, we can begin to imagine how the scope of our empathic
imaginations might widen whenever we empathize with one another.
For instance, if I were to empathize with you, that is, by simulating your
situated psychological state, the context of such an experience might
require that I empathize with your current situation at work as well as the
multiple relations between you and such a situation, or I might feel into
the qualities and dynamics of our relationship, or I might even feel into the
meaningfulness of a conversation we had two years agoall such examples
of having empathy for objects and their relations might be relevant as
Iattempt to grasp your experiential circumstance.
Herders multiple employments of the verb sich einfhlen, that is, feeling oneself into objects, persons, and relations, accentuates this variety and
complexity of empathic experiences. For Herder provides us with a very
rich and complex understanding of the term as well as the phenomenon
of empathy wherein our ability to empathize with certain objects and their
relations plays a role in our empathizing with others. Specifically, empathy
for objects (e.g., the different ideals, goals, and ways of life within cultures
other than our own as well as the relations among these objects) is necessary for one to feel into and to understand the experiences of others as
well as to feel into the radically different experiences of others (Herder
[1774] 1891, 5023, 506). Quite unlike contemporary notions of empathy,
then, where the goal of empathizing with others is to match the experiences of others in terms of and in line with our own, many of Herders
usages of empathy aimed to identify and then to grasp (in a very incomplete
manner) plural, incommensurable, yet equally valid truths found in the
experiences of others without having the desire or need to find room for
such truths within our own experiences. The larger aim of this pluralism
was to provide an alternative approach for historians so that empathy would
become central in their attempts to understand the cultures, histories, and
time periods of other civilizations. Additionally, Herder hoped that empathically infused historical methods would show the limits and follies of overly
rational and scientific methods used in the constructions of hierarchical
and unilinear theories of developmentmethods and constructions that
Herder believed to be exemplary of the biases and ignorance of his own
civilization.
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An embrace of historically rich and pluralistic conceptualizations of

empathy provides insight into the fundamentally relational character of
our empathic experiences, where the moral significance of having empathy
for objects, animals (including human animals), and relations is contingent upon the contexts of our experiences as well as the consequences of
our actions. But by adopting and following narrow definitions of empathy,
which implicitly ignore historically varied conceptualizations of empathy,
we limit our ability to understand the rich, vibrant, and relational nature
of this phenomenon and thus exclude a variety of experiential contexts and
circumstances, within which the experiences of others glow with a hue of
colors quite unlike our own.
notes
1. See Novalis 1981.
2. Jesse Prinz (2014) gives an interesting and thoughtful answer to this
question.
3. Hume (who used the term sympathy for what Slote here calls empathy)
described this phenomenon as both the experience of another persons feeling(s)
infused into us and a type of contagion between what one person feels and what
another feels.
4. According to Coplan (2011, 55), this distinction is based on empirical studies
that suggest that pseudo-empathy or self-oriented perspective taking is fraught
with difficulties, including but not limited to errors in prediction, misattributions,
and personal distress.
5. This distinction is based on very sound scientific studies and a sensible
understanding of evolutionary history. In one such study, Simone G. ShamayTsoory (2009) and her crew noticed that patients with ventromedial lesions were
impaired in high-level perspective taking, while patients with inferior frontal
gyrus lesions were impaired in low-level empathy (or emotional contagion).
6. Coplan notes, I consider these processes to be distinctive enough to warrant
distinctive labels. In addition, the terms emotional empathy and cognitive
empathy are not used uniformly. Thus, some researchers use emotional empathy
to refer to emotional contagion, while others use emotional empathy to refer to
any empathic process involving an emotion, and still others use the term to refer
to cases of empathizing with someone who is experiencing emotion (as opposed
to someone who is thinking or reasoning) (2011, 51).
7. Many thanks go to Jessica Wahman, whose insights into the work of David
Krasner (2006) led me to consider this relationship between empathy and
pluralism. See Wahman 2014.
41
8. I make this plea for a pluralistic conception of empathy as a general

commitment and starting point for thinking of the variegated meanings and
usages of empathy in experience. Though this is in accord with my spirit of
philosophical pluralism, I realize that for certain investigations that require
specific and carefully stipulated definitions of empathy it might not be useful. For
example, if a neuroscientist defined empathy as the imaginative simulation of
anothers experiences, he or she might not find it useful to include the notion of
empathy as feeling oneself into an object.
9. For these reasons and others, I find Preston and de Waals definition of
empathy exceedingly useful: any process where the attended perception of the
object generates a state in the subject that is more applicable to the objects state
or situation than of the subjects own prior state or situation (2002, 4).
10. Decety further notes that his aim in this work, with co-author Kalina J.
Michalska, is to argue that the construct of empathy needs to be broken down
into a model that includes bottom-up processing of affective communication and
top-down reappraisal processing in which the perceivers motivations, intention,
and attitudes influence the extent of empathic experience (2012, 167).
11. For instance, see Avenanti et al. 2005; Danziger, Prkachin, and Willer
2006; Decety and Lamm 2009; Gu and Han 2007; etc. Certainly, not all of the
literature is characterized by a focus on empathys relation to anothers sorrow,
pain, or disorder, though it is sufficiently widespread to make me concerned.
In a Nietzschean spirit, I hope that future scientific studies focus more upon lifeaffirming and joyful experiences in the study of helping behavior and prosociality.
In fact, I wonder what would happen if scientific studies of empathy only focused
upon these positive dynamics of our characters.
12. One may locate the embryonic stirrings of these trends early in the twentieth
century in the writings of McDougall (1909) and a more fully developed portrait
of them by the middle of the twentieth century in the writings and practices of
Rogers (e.g., 1957). For more recent examples of these trends, see Batson and
Coke 1981; Eisenberg and Miller 1987; Feshbach 1978; Hoffman 1984, 2000;
Rushton 1980; Staub 1978.
13. For an excellent synopsis of this tradition of empathy, see Currie 2014.
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Pluralistic Conceptualizations of Empathy

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Pluralistic Conceptualizations of Empathy

Author(s): Mark Fagiano

pluralistic conceptualizations of empathy

within academic discourses and suggests that we need to adopt a narrow

Michael Slote: Empathy as the Cement of the Moral Universe

pluralistic conceptualizations of empathy

judgments by comparing and contrasting them with our understanding of

Amy Coplan: A Narrow Conceptualization of Empathy

pluralistic conceptualizations of empathy

empathy has three key features: affective matching, other-oriented

studies that challenge the distinctions she makes (Gazzola, Aziz-Zadeh,

Pluralistic Conceptualizations of Empathy

pluralistic conceptualizations of empathy

value of different types of empathy within experience.8 Slote, Coplan, and

pluralistic conceptualizations of empathy

By moral sense here I am not claiming that such a sense is necessarily

pluralistic conceptualizations of empathy

conceptualizations of empathy also expands our moral sensibilities as

An embrace of historically rich and pluralistic conceptualizations of

pluralistic conceptualizations of empathy

8. I make this plea for a pluralistic conception of empathy as a general

Personality, and Developmental Perspectives, edited by J. P. Rushton and

pluralistic conceptualizations of empathy

Hatfield, Elaine, John T. Cacioppo, and Richard L. Rapson. 1994. Emotional

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