Heidi L. Maibom is professor of philosophy at University of
Cincinnati. She studied at University of Copenhagen, University of
Bologna, and University College London, and has held fellowships at
Cambridge and Princeton Universities. She works on folk psychology,
empathy, responsibility, and psychopathy. Heidi is the editor and
contributor to the book, Empathy and Morality. She wrote the first chapter
titled, Introduction: Everything you ever wanted to know about empathy.
Empathy
and Morality, the book publisher's description: "This collection is
dedicated to the question of the importance of these capacities to
morality. It brings together twelve original papers in philosophy,
psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and neuroscience to give a
comprehensive overview of the issue and includes an extensive survey of
empathy and empathy-related emotions.
Some contributors argue that empathy is essential to core
cases of moral judgments, others that empathic concern and moral
considerations give rise to wholly distinct motives. Contributors look at
such issues as the absence of empathy in psychopaths, the use of empathy
training for rehabilitating violent offenders, and the presence of empathy
in other primates. The volume is distinctive in focusing on the moral
import of empathy and sympathy."
"It brings together twelve original papers in
philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and neuroscience to give
a comprehensive overview of the issue and includes
an extensive survey of empathy and
empathy-related emotions."
Empathy
and Morality
by Heidi Maibom (Editor) - June 2, 2014
"The relationship between empathy and morality has long been debated.
Adam Smith and David Hume famously argued that our tendency to feel
with our fellow human beings played a foundational role in morality.
And while recent decades have seen a resurgence of interest in the
idea that empathy or sympathy is central to moral judgment and
motivation, the view is nonetheless increasingly attacked. "
The Routledge
Handbook of Philosophy of Empathy
by Heidi Maibom (Editor) -
Feb 3, 2017
"Empathy plays a central role in the history and contemporary study of
ethics, interpersonal understanding, and the emotions, yet until now
has been relatively underexplored. The Routledge Handbook of
Philosophy of Empathy is an outstanding reference source to the key
topics, problems and debates in this exciting field and is the first
collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of
international contributors, the Handbook is divided into six parts:"
Empathy
by Heidi Maibom (Author) - February 7, 2020
"Empathy is one of the most talked about and widely studied concepts
of recent years. Some argue it can help create a more just society,
improve medical care and even avert global catastrophe. Others object
that it is morally problematic. Who is right? And what is empathy
anyway? Is it a way of feeling with others, or is it simply feeling
sorry for them? Is it a form of knowledge? What is its evolutionary
origin?"
The Space Between: How Empathy Really Works,
by
Heidi L. Maibom - June 14, 2022
"When Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court,
his comments that a judge should have "the heart, the empathy, to
recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to
understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay,
disabled, or old" caused a furor. Objective, reasoned, and impartial
judgment were to be replaced by partiality, sentiment, and bias,
critics feared. This concern about empathy has since been voiced not
just by conservative critics, but by academics and public figures."
Empathy plays a central role in the history and contemporary study of
ethics, interpersonal understanding, and the emotions, yet until now has
been relatively underexplored. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of
Empathy is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems
and debates in this exciting field and is the first collection of its
kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international
contributors, the Handbook is divided into six parts:
"When Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the US
Supreme Court, his comments that a judge should have "the heart, the
empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the
empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or
gay, disabled, or old" caused a furor. Objective, reasoned, and
impartial judgment were to be replaced by partiality, sentiment, and
bias, critics feared. This concern about empathy has since been voiced
not just by conservative critics, but by academics and public figures.
In The Space Between, Heidi Maibom combines results from philosophy,
psychology, and neuroscience to argue that rather than making us more
biased or partial, empathy makes us more impartial and more
objective.The problem is that we don't see the world objectively in the
first place, Maibom explains. "
"A new book argues that our perspectives
are always limited, but we can understand other people better if we
learn to use empathy wisely.
BY JILL SUTTIE | AUGUST 30, 2022
Is empathy a helpful tool for understanding other people better, or does
it simply reflect our biases?
This question has plagued researchers and philosophers for decades. Some
have argued that empathy is flawed and problematic (especially in
certain situations, like judging people in a court of law or choosing
where to donate money). After all, we resonate
more naturally with
the feelings of people who are similar to us, making empathy dependent
on our own experiences and backgrounds.
"An interdisciplinary volume that
critically examines the idea that empathy or sympathy is central to
morality
Brings together original papers in
philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and neuroscience
Distinctive in its focus on the moral
import of empathy and sympathy
Includes an extensive survey of empathy
and empathy-related emotions
The relationship between empathy and
morality has long been debated. Adam Smith and David Hume famously
argued that our tendency to feel with our fellow human beings played a
foundational role in morality. And while recent decades have seen a
resurgence of interest in the idea that empathy or sympathy is central
to moral judgment and motivation, the view is nonetheless increasingly
attacked. Empathy is so morally limited, some argue, that we should
focus our attention elsewhere. Yet the importance of our capacities to
feel with and for others is hard to deny.
This collection is dedicated to the question of the importance of these
capacities to morality. It brings together twelve original papers in
philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and neuroscience to
give a comprehensive overview of the issue and includes an extensive
survey of empathy and empathy-related emotions. Some contributors argue
that empathy is essential to core cases of moral judgments, others that
empathic concern and moral considerations give rise to wholly distinct
motives. Contributors look at such issues as the absence of empathy in
psychopaths, the use of empathy training for rehabilitating violent
offenders, and the presence of empathy in other primates. The volume is
distinctive in focusing on the moral import of empathy and sympathy."
Chapter 2.
Empathy-induced altruism and morality: No necessary connection
Daniel Batson is Professor Emeritus in Department of Psychology at
University of Kansas.
Chapter 3. Empathy and morality: A developmental psychology
perspective
Tracy L. Spinrad is Associate Professor in the School of Social and
Family Dynamics at Arizona State University.
Nancy Eisenberg is Regents' Professor in the Department of Psychology
at Arizona State University
Chapter 4. Empathy, justice, and social change
Martin L. Hoffman is Professor Emeritus in the Department of
Psychology at New York University.
Chapter 5. Empathy, emotion regulation, and moral judgment
Antti Kauppinen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy
at Trinity College Dublin.
Chapter 6.
At the empathetic center of our moral lives
George Graham is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Georgia
State University.
K. Richard Garrett is Associate Professor in the Department of
Philosophy at Bentley University.
Chapter 7. Empathic and moral deficits in psychopathy.
Abigail A. Marsh is Assistant Professor in the Department of
Psychology at Georgetown University.
Chapter 8. Are empathy and morality linked?
Evidence from moral psychology, social and decision neuroscience, and
philosophy
Giuseppe Ugazio is Postdoctoral Researcher in the Social Cognitive and
Affective Neuroscience Unit of the Department of Basic Psychological
Research and Research Methods at the University of Vienna.
Jasminka Majdandzic is Postdoctoral Researcher in the Social Cognitive
and Affective Neuroscience Unit of the Department of Basic
Psychological Research and Research Methods at the University of
Vienna.
Claus Lamm is Professor and Head of the Social Cognitive and Affective
Neuroscience Unit of the Department of Basic Psychological Research
and Research Methods at the University of Vienna.
Chapter 9. On empathy: A perspective from developmental
psychopathology.
R. Peter Hobson is
Professor of Developmental Psychopathology in the Behavioural and
Brain Sciences Unit of the Institute of Child Health at University
College London and the Tavistock Clinic.
Jessica Hobson is Senior Research Fellow in the Behavioural and Brain
Sciences Unit of Institute of Child Health at University College
London.
Chapter 10. Empathy in other apes.
Lori Gruen is
Professor of Philosophy, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and
Environmental Studies at Wesleyan University.
Kristin Andrews is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy
at York University.
Chapter 11. Psychological altruism, empathy, and offender
rehabilitation.
Tony Ward is Professor in the School of Psychology at
Victoria University of Wellington.
Russil Durrant is Senior Lecturer in the School of
Social and Cultural Studies at Victoria University of Wellington.
Chapter 12. Empathy and morality in ethnographic perspective
Douglas Hollan is Professor of Anthropology and Luckman
Distinguished Teacher at UCLA, co-director of the FPR-UCLA Culture,
Brain, and Development Program in Mental Health, and an instructor at
the New Center for Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles.
Empathy, Emotion Regulation, and Moral Judgment
by Antti
Kauppinen
"Empathy and Morality , Oxford University Press.In recent years, some
striking claims have been made about the importance of empathy –
roughly, the capacity to share the feelings of others – to morality and
prosocial action. Perhaps most notably, Michael Slote (2007, 2010)
maintains that empathy is the “cement of the moral universe” that
“arguably constitutes the basis of both meta ethics and normativeethics”
(2010, 4).
As inevitably happens with philosophical enthusiasms, there has also
been a backlash, even among those who believe emotions are central to
moral thought. Within the sentimentalist camp, Jesse Prinz (2011a, b)
makes a thorough case against empathy, arguing it’s neither
constitutively, causally, developmentally, epistemically, nor
motivationally necessary for moralizing. Indeed, Prinz argues that
empathy is likely to lead us astray in moral thought, however important
it is for personal relationships. Shaun Nichols (2004) and Jonathan
Haidt (2012) also emphasize the role of non-empathetic emotional
responses such as disgust in moral thinking."
and Morality.
Edited by Heidi L. Maibom
Inquiry, 52 483-99 (2009).
"An increasingly popular suggestion is that empathy and/or
sympathy plays a foundational role in understanding harm norms and being
motivated by them. In this paper, I argue these emotions play a rather
more moderate role in harms norms than we are often led to believe.
Evidence from people with frontal lobe damage suggests that neither
empathy, nor sympathy is necessary for the understanding of such norms.
Furthermore, people’s understanding of why it is wrong to harm varies
and is by no means limited to considerations of welfare arising from the
abilities to sympathize and/ or empathize. And the sorts of
considerations of welfare that are central to sympathy and, to some
extent empathy, are often already moralized. As such, these
considerations cannot form the non-moral foundation of harm norms.
Finally, empathy and sympathy are not the only emotions that motivate
harm norms.
"
