Jesse Prinz is Distinguished Professor at City University of
New York, Graduate Center. He says "I work primarily in the philosophy of
psychology, broadly construed. I am interested in how the mind works. I
think philosophical accounts of the mental can be fruitfully informed by
findings from psychology, the neurosciences, anthropology, and related
fields. My theoretical convictions are unabashedly empiricist. I hope to
resuscitate core claims of British Empiricism against the backdrop of
contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science."
In this engaging interview-dialog, Edwin Rutsch empathizes
with Jesse about the problems he sees with empathy and replies to some of
the criticisms. Jesses says, "empathy is prone to biases that render
it potentially harmful. Another construct—concern—fares somewhat better,
but it is also of limited use. I argue that, instead of empathy, moral
judgments involve emotions such as anger, disgust, guilt, and admiration.
These, not empathy, provide the sentimental foundation for morality."
With David Hume looking over his their shoulders,
Edwin Rutsch facilitates a new way for philosophers to dialog
with each other about their views. Instead of a competitive debate, they
try to empathize with each others feelings,
needs,
points of view and understandings. Edwin
facilitates this
Philosophers Empathy Circle
with
Jesse Prinz
who is 'against empathy' and Lori Gruen
who is 'for empathy'.
Check out this fascinating process and discussion. How will it end?
"empathy is prone to biases that render it potentially
harmful...
I argue that, instead of empathy, moral judgments involve emotions
such as anger, disgust, guilt, and admiration. These, not empathy,
provide the sentimental foundation for morality."
"Empathy
is widely and increasingly heralded as an essential ingredient of
morality. It is said to be necessary for moral development, moral
motivation, and even for comprehending the moral domain. But is empathy
really important for morality
Prof Jesse Prinz and Prof Molly Crockett will address these claims and
engage in a discussion and Q&A session. Prof Prinz argues that empathy
is in fact not necessary for morality, and it may even be harmful.
Because empathy can bias us towards our near and dear, and blind us to
demands of justice, we should look beyond empathy in developing
recommendations about how to instill moral competence and encourage
moral commitment."
Claudia Passos-Ferreira
"Walk a mile in my shoes goes the saying. But beware the
swapping of footwear. Many believe that what the world needs now is
empathy; large dollops of it. President Obama, no less, raised empathy
to a question of public policy, comparing the dangers of an empathy
deficit with the big hole in the federal budget. It sounds right and
feels good but is empathy really necessary for sound moral judgement?
Worse, could it lead to injustice?"
lot's of
empathy books out there.. but be wary
Jesse Prinz- Empathy skeptic; Empathy is more harmful than
helpful in the moral domain. Government creating more empathy is a
misallocation of resources.
What is
empathy and why do we need to understand it? Is a disposition to have emotions. There is no single
feeling of empathy. It might be experienced as sadness, if you feel
somebody who is sad. It might be experiencing as anger if you see
somebody who is angry. And it can be described as a capacity to have a
vicarious emotional experience. So when you see somebody else's
experience or imagine what experience they would be having under their
circumstances, for instance you see somebody in great danger, you have
a tendency to acquire a take on that experience. To see somebody in
danger induces fear in the observer. Fear in you, even if you
are not in any danger yourself. So the importance or interest in
empathy is that is a fundamentally social response. It shows
that our emotions are not just narcissistic, but are calibrated to the
conditions of other people around us.
Is it the
same a sympathy? The same term David Hume used but in a different way? I think it's quite the same, but the term empathy is a newer
term. It had German origins and has been with us for only 100 years.
If you look at Hume, he defines sympathy in much the
same way I just characterized empathy and some people in recent
philosophical discussions have tried to develop more nuanced
ddistinctions here aand one could
say for instance that in the case of empathy there is a further kind
of attribution that goes on. It'snot simply a
contagion process where you literally catch the
emotion of somebody your observing, but you first
catch an emotion and then go on to attribute to that person a kind of
emotional state. So there is a kind of cognitive dimension in the case
of empathy that is not always implicated in sympathy as these terms
are currently used.
3:00
Empathy as first base in moral reasoning. Right and just moral
outcome. you see a problem in that don't you? Is a dangerous emotion when it comes to moral decision making. For
several reasons.
empathy is
dyadic, between 2 people.. problems are between whole populations.
i.e. global poverty, discrepancy of wealth, etc. These don't dwell
on the suffering on one individual but of a whole group
psychology
says empathy does not arise in group context.
Empathy
arises mostly with people similar to us. If your concerned
with other groups, then empathy is not likely to be engaged.
Psychology
says empathy is not very motivating. feeling vicarious
distress (personal distress) as a kind of incapacitating
response. When somebody else suffers, and you catch their suffering
(emotional contagion) you become disabled by that feeling. You are
now lacking in the ability to do anything because you have joined
them in their misery.
Outrage with
injustice, with global poverty. that can be motivating.
feelings of outrage at injustice are much more successful at
motivating moral emotions than vicarious forms of distress that are
associated with empathy.
5:30 Anger
as motivating force?
every
emotion has it dangers.
reflection
in perfect moral decision.
hold our
emotions in check with more considered or reflective emotional
responses.
some
irritates you - maybe a mistake.. reflection, having been wronged.
5:45 Eight
objections to empathy.
non
motivating
preferential treatment
biases
manipulation
selective
ingroup
proximity
effects
getting
close to some distorts the objectivity of the moral situation you
might be in?
yes.. empathy is good for small groups, exceptionally well suited
for that. Empathy is a wonderful emotion for friendships and family.
To feel when your friends are suffering, that their suffering
is a mater of your own personal concern is vital to successful
interpersonal relationships. But when we are dealing with moral
issues, we very often need to take a stance that is disconnected
from our particular group memberships. I think empathy is ill-suited
for that, it's actually going to drive us away from the sensitivity
we need to take on moral concern. If you think about the Australian
context where we have a country populated as a result of a
colonialization and some would say a near genocide. Or the North
American context where the same it true and the moral crime of
slavery, these particular cases of human atrocities. Some of the
most egregious examples of human immorally in our recent history are
really dependant on a group difference. On the fact that we are able
to dehumanize some other population by seeing them as fundamentally
different than us. Empathy is very susceptible to that kind of
dehumanization. Once you see somebody as fundamentally other,
fundamentally different, empathy turn off like a switch. But
in justice, our sense now that what we have done in the historical
past was heinous, is I think connected to a more intellectual
recognition of human dignity. And when we see that in clear
perspective the outrage and the great shame is very easy to feel.
9:00 - The
motivating power of empathy for the other. is powerful.
Nice work if you can get it. The fear again is that it is difficult to
get that into motion and if you've gotten it into motion it is because
you already done all these other acrobatics that are themselves
sufficient for the moral conduct. ......
people don't take the extra step of energy needed for empathy. Empathy
tends to be very lacking in motivation power (mother tending to
baby??) If you focus on issues of distributive justice, and
realize that wealthy societies should not tolerate the kind of poverty
that we see all around us. That is a very strong motivator......
10:00 -
This moves towards a Cantian duty based set of ethics, doesn't it?
It is Cantian in some sense. Principled, this notion that justice can
be grounded very often in a sense of human equality and share human
dignity is a very important part of the picture....
need a tool to motivate human action... need a combination of
principle and sentiment. We need principle to tell us which cases are
cases of injustice, but we need a sensibility and an emotional
capacity to see injustice as wrong.....
11:30 -
Outrage based morality -
Outrage is just part of the story.... emotions like guilt, shame, even
joy....
12:00 -
Book Store self-help section says we need more empathy, we need to be
more empathetic to one another.
I think we are on the wrong track. There is something very
seductive about empathy. To say you are against empathy is like say
your against puppy dogs.... I don't think apposing empathy as a moral
compass means we should appose empathy as a foundation for good
friendships for instance. I do think these self help books when they
have taken on a moral cast give us a sense that there is a kind of
panacea..... empathy is potentially more harmful than helpful in the
moral domain.
14: 00
-Claudia Passos-Ferreira has been
developing a response to the empathy naysayers. Case of the children from Central America.
"Psychology
tells us that empathy arises for people who are similar to us, which can
have serious implications on our ability to make sound moral judgments,
writes Joe Gelonesi. He speaks to empathy skeptic Jesse Prinz about why
emotions like anger might be more successful in motivating us to act."
It is widely believed that empathy is a good thing,
from a moral point of view. It is something we should cultivate because
it makes us better people. Perhaps that’s true. But it is also sometimes
suggested that empathy is somehow necessary for morality. That is the
hypothesis I want to interrogate and challenge. Not only is there little
evidence for the claim that empathy is necessary, there is also reason
to think empathy can interfere with the ends of morality. A capacity for
empathy might make us better people, but placing empathy at the center
of our moral lives may be ill advised. That is not to say that morality
shouldn’t centrally involve emotions. I think emotions are essential for
moral judgment and moral motivation (Prinz, 2007). It’s just that
empathetic emotions are not ideally suited for these jobs. Before
embarking on this campaign against empathy, I want to say a little more
about the target of the attack. What is empathy?
"In this chapter I ask whether empathy is necessary for
morality. This question can be disambiguated in several ways. Is empathy
necessary for making moral judgments? Is empathy necessary for
developing a moral sense? Is empathy necessary for moral motivation? Is
empathy normatively necessary i.e., should we necessarily try to
cultivate an empathy-based moral psychology? I argue that the answer to
each of these questions is no. Empathy is less integral to morality,
than some have thought, and potentially an impediment to moral
motivation. Other moral emotions are more important."
Against Empathy
-
2011-09-01
"Empathy can be characterized as a vicarious emotion that one person
experiences when reflecting on the emotion of another. So characterized,
empathy is sometimes regarded as a precondition on moral judgment. This
seems to have been Hume's view. I review various ways in which empathy
might be regarded as a precondition and argue against each of them:
empathy is not a component, a necessary cause, a reliable epistemic
guide, a foundation for justification, or the motivating force behind
our moral judgments. In fact, empathy is prone to biases that render it
potentially harmful. Another construct—concern—fares somewhat better,
but it is also of limited use. I argue that, instead of empathy, moral
judgments involve emotions such as anger, disgust, guilt, and
admiration. These, not empathy, provide the sentimental foundation for
morality."
Articles Referencing Jesse Prinz
The Baby in the Well, The case against empathy.2013-05-20 By Paul Bloom
- New Yorker
Magazine "Moral judgment entails more than putting oneself in another’s shoes.
As the philosopher Jesse Prinz points out, some acts that we
easily recognize as wrong, such as shoplifting or tax evasion, have no
identifiable victim. And plenty of good deeds—disciplining a child for
dangerous behavior, enforcing a fair and impartial procedure for
determining who should get an organ transplant, despite the suffering
of those low on the list—require us to put our empathy to one side.
Eight deaths are worse than one, even if you know the name of the one;
humanitarian aid can, if poorly targeted, be counterproductive; the
threat posed by climate change warrants the sacrifices entailed by
efforts to ameliorate it."
The Limits of Empathy
2011-09-29
by David Brooks - NY Times
"There have been piles of studies investigating the link between
empathy and moral action. Different scholars come to different
conclusions, but, in a
recent paper, Jesse Prinz, a philosopher at City University of New
York, summarized the research this way: “These studies suggest that
empathy is not a major player when it comes to moral motivation. Its
contribution is negligible in children, modest in adults, and
nonexistent when costs are significant.” Other scholars have called
empathy a “fragile flower,” easily crushed by self-concern."
Against Empathy: Critical Theory and the Social Brainmore by Jan Slaby, junior professor in philosophy at Free
University Berlin, Germany.
"The aim of this paper is to mount two distinct challenges to the
currently fashionable research and discourse on empathy... Footnote 13. Jesse Prinz (2011) has helpfully surveyed
objections to the notion of grounding a naturalist account of human
morality on empathy and related pro-social sentiments. Epistemically,
the range of empathy is usually restricted to the local and familiar
to an extent we cannot tolerate for morality, it can thus all too
easily be manipulated (rhetorically, with images etc.). Empathy is
often not motivational in the right way; it carries no normative
weight in moral deliberation unless one is ready to violate the
naturalistic fallacy objection. Moreover, as an occurring affective
state, it is usually biased towards the here and now and thus always
prone to overrule longer-term rational deliberation."
Empathy for Prinz of the “Dark Side” - Ananda Mathers
"Jesse Prinz has argued that empathy plays no important role in moral
judgement, and further that it has a “dark side” which renders it by and
large bad for morality. This paper challenges these conclusions and
demonstrates that it is possible to meet Prinz’s objections by adopting
a conceptualisation of empathy which combines elements of Martin
Hoffman’s process-focussed definition of empathy with Michael Slote’s
agent-centred approach to empathy’s functional role within morality.
Beyond proving resilient in the face of Prinz’s attacks, such a
conceptualisation of empathy also displays a degree of explanatory
usefulness both within Prinz’s own brand of moral sentimentalism and the
moral psychology literature more generally. Far from being bad for
morality, empathy would appear to be a useful ally to a robust moral
sentimentalism."
Professor Jesse Prinz (Philosophy, City University of New
York) Professor Molly Crockett (Neuroscience, University of Oxford) Chaired by Dr Simone Schnall (Psychology, University of Cambridge)
Abstract "Empathy is widely and increasingly heralded as an
essential ingredient of morality. It is said to be necessary for moral
development, moral motivation, and even for comprehending the moral
domain. But is empathy really important for morality? Prof Jesse Prinz
and Prof Molly Crockett will address these claims and engage in a
discussion and Q&A session. Prof Prinz argues that empathy is in fact
not necessary for morality, and it may even be harmful. Because
empathy can bias us towards our near and dear, and blind us to demands
of justice, we should look beyond empathy in developing
recommendations about how to instill moral competence and encourage
moral commitment.
For Prof Crockett, answering the question of whether empathy is
necessary to morality has been difficult due to the limitations of
methods for measuring morality in the lab. Most research on human
morality has relied on hypothetical judgments but there is evidence
that hypothetical judgments are poor predictors of real moral
decisions. In her talk she will describe newly developed methods for
quantifying morality in the lab and present the results of a series of
behavioral experiments investigating how people disvalue the pain of
strangers relative to their own pain. These studies provide empirical
data bearing on the question of whether empathy is important and
necessary for morality."
Outline
Molly Crockett
Empathy and Morality
Morality testing in the lab is problematic
imagine meteor is going to hit the earth
Adam Smith
tradeoff with a million lives and losing a finger
How to measure cost of pain - Studies
Empathy perspective - predicts if we feel others pain
as your own then??
(back to Adam Smith)
Various tests
findings that people value harm to others more than
for self.
how does empathy relate?
30:00 Summary and conclusions
harm to others outweighs harm to self
empathy insufficient for explaining morality -
people are nicer than an empathy account would predicts
inductions of empathy - people use cute fussy
pictures to manipulate others
definition - emotional mirroring
Empathy is all the moral rage - may not be and may be
harmful to moral project
Some say we need to route material through empathy to
determine what is right or wrong.
don't' think this is true
41:30 - If you use empathy as a source of your moral
knowledge, it will get you into trouble
Empathy's dark side
near and dear bias
give harsher sentences to other ethnic groups than
our own
courtroom studies - emotional display get better
judgments
empathy is a force to be good to your ingroup -
that's it's job function,
it's not empathy that drives pro sociality but
oneness
if you identify with the other, seem them as part of
your groups then you will help them
the other is just like you, that is what is doing
the work.
We go to war because we have such empathy bounded
solidarity for our own group that when we see a threat we are
willing to support military intervention.
Solution
formulate things in terms of injustice,
cruelty, or give people a body count, that is a better motivator
than empathy.
see the other as the same cause as you
other motivators, happiness, disgust, etc, better
than invoking empathic pain.
protest marches - solidarity is the shared effect..
1/4 - Jesse Prinz
lecture about morality - Oct
18, 2011
"According to a long-standing tradition in philosophy, moral judgments
are based on emotions; we decide whether something is wrong by seeing
how it makes us feel. Recent research in psychology offers a wide range
of evidence supporting this view, and extending our understanding of
which emotions contribute. Neuroimaging studies add further support by
confirming that moral judgments recruit brain structures associated with
emotion. But some findings from neuroscience have been interpreted as
providing evidence for a mixed view, which states that some moral
judgments are emotionally based while others principally involve reason.
An alternative interpretation of these findings in offered, according to
which all moral judgments are rooted in emotions, but the emotions
involved vary from case to case, and reason can play an important,
though subsidiary, role.
Jesse Prinz studies the cognitive and neurological foundations of the
mind, focusing particularly on emotional, experiential, and cultural
contributions to thought and morality."
Neurophilosophy of Morality: The Role of Emotions
"Culturalist and Neurophilosopher Jesse Prinz, Distinguished Professor at
the City University of New York Graduate Center, and Director of CUNY's
Mellon Committee for Interdisciplinary Science Studies, covers an
encyclopaedic range of neuroscience-related topics - including empirical
philosophy, evolution, culture, emotion, morality and consciousness - in
his conversation with Critical Thought TV's Stuart Mason Dambrot. "
Nature + Nurture: Evolution and Culture
"Culturalist and Neurophilosopher Jesse Prinz, Distinguished Professor at
the City University of New York Graduate Center, and Director of CUNY's
Mellon Committee for Interdisciplinary Science Studies, covers an
encyclopaedic range of neuroscience-related topics - including empirical
philosophy, evolution, culture, emotion, morality and consciousness - in
his conversation with Critical Thought TV's Stuart Mason Dambrot."
Living with Relativism
"Philosopher Jesse Prinz, distinguished professor of philosophy at the
Graduate Center of the City University of New York discusses "Living
with Relativism: Can We Find a Common Good in a Morally Diverse World?"
as part of the Jepson Leadership Forum on The Common Good. He examines
the nature of the concept of good and argues that it cannot be expressed
simply as a set of objective standards or a projection of individual
preferences, but rather exists as a combination of the two. January 27,
2010"
