Empathy as Non-Moral Psychological Mechanism

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 1 explains why empathy is important for a study of the emotional impacts of inequality. The growing literature on the topic is selectively discussed, but also sifted for lacunae and shortcomings. Empathy is treated as an imagination-based and active matching of feelings; it contains evaluative judgments concerning the normative appropriateness of observed or contemplated responses to situations. In general terms, the chosen approach follows Adam Smith’s account of sympathy in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Many recent accounts of empathy, by contrast, offer a conceptually reductive approach to the topic; they thus overlook the various complex conditions that need to exist if empathy is to get off the ground at all. The role that imagination plays in empathy is emphasized. It is suggested that many authors pay lip service to the role of imagination but shy away from studying its implications.