Michael E. Morrell is Associate Professor, University of Connecticut.
His main research interests examine the connections between
empathy and democracy, the effects of direct democratic participation on
citizens, and the role of political efficacy in democracy, public opinion,
and political behavior.
Michael is also continuing to explore his theory of the
role of empathy in democracy as it relates to topics ranging from
President Barack Obama to agonistic democracy. Michael is author of
Empathy and
Democracy: Feeling, Thinking, and Deliberation.
Scudder, Mary.
2020. Beyond
Empathy and Inclusion: The Challenge of Listening in Democratic
Deliberation.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Selective empathy - people are selective in empathy - so that
keeps it from being effective
Projection Bias - we think we have listen, but we haven't.
A defense of Empathy
Is Bloom really against empathy - he limits the concept to
feeling others.
against a certain type of empathy
people are biased.
Do we limit or expand empathy
*if you empathize with the one. it spreads to others in the group.
mitigating projection bias
Coda: more problem?
A new paper - reviewed an article: The Empathy Dilemma - a group of
people
1. has some criticisms like the other critics
2. epistemic injustice - places a burden of empathy on
already burdened people
1. have a burden to be effective
2. oppressed groups may not be able to articulate their
experience. they may may be even unaware of it themselves.
3. some people have more opportunity to have people empathize with
then.
4. people may choose not to express themselves
5.creating stories to communicate to a dominant group may place a
burden on them.
They don't offer solutions.
The process of empathy is the best way to overcome marginalization
Michael Morrell Quotes
"One of the reasons deliberative democrats miss the importance of
empathy is that they have not sufficiently addressed
the role of affect in deliberation."
"I believe this is due, at least in part, to their tendencies to
fall back upon conceptualizations of reflection, rationality,
and reasoning that give precedence to cognition
over affect in human judgment."
"only by placing empathy at the heart of deliberation
can democracy fulfill its promise of
allowing legitimate decisions that
give equal consideration to
all
those in society."
Papers
Empathy and
Democracy: Feeling, Thinking and Deliberation. Penn State University Press.
2010.
Empathy and
Democratic Education. Public Affairs Quarterly. 2007. 21: 381-403.
"Democracy harbors within it fundamental
tensions between the ideal of giving everyone equal consideration and the
reality of having to make legitimate, binding collective decisions.
Democracies have granted political rights to more groups of people, but
formal rights have not always guaranteed equal consideration or democratic
legitimacy.
It is Michael Morrell's argument in this book that empathy plays a crucial
role in enabling democratic deliberation to function the way it should.
Drawing on empirical studies of empathy, including his own, Morrell offers
a "process model of empathy" that incorporates both affect and cognition.
He shows how this model can help democratic theorists who emphasize the
importance of deliberation answer their critics."
There is a promise inherent in democracy: before a society makes
decisions that it will use its collective power to enforce, it will give
equal consideration to everyone in the community. The development of
collective decision-making institutions that take into consideration a
wider range of interests did not begin with the rise of modern
democracies...
"Today's
democracies are still struggling to fulfill democracy's promise of
equal consideration, and the claim I will defend is that they can do
so most fully by giving empathy a central role in democratic
decision-making. Without empathy, large modern societies cannot
give citizens the kind of equal consideration necessary to make
democratic decisions legitimate. To demonstrate why this is the case,
I draw upon a unique combination of theoretical positions regarding
democracy and empathy and empirical research on the effects of empathy
and the role of emotions in politics, including some of my own
experimental studies."
Societies
and exclusion of participation -
Equal
Consideration and Collective Decision-Making: Response in Democratic
Theory
The
Deliberative Turn
"can resolve
the tension between equal consideration and collective
decision-making in a democracy through some form of deliberation"
The
Affective Turn
"I believe we
can improve deliberative theory by giving a greater place to empathy
within deliberation."
"The problem
is that most deliberative theorists have not done enough to address
either the role of affect or empathy in a deliberative democracy."
Empathy and
Democracy
"Empathy is
necessary not just for Goodwin's "deliberation within," but
for
deliberative theory that strives to attain the communication between
citizens that is the basis of deliberative democracy."
book outline
Ch 2 -
"preliminary description of the role of affect in deliberation"
Ch 3 -
intellectual history of empathy
Ch 4 - use
empathy process model and relate deliberative theorists to it.
Ch 5 -
empirical evidence to demonstrate that deliberative democracy
requires empathy to function correctly.
Ch 6 -
relate critiques of deliberation to further clarify empathy's
importance.
Ch 7 -
alternative conceptualization of deliberation
"I end by
developing some of the implications for the democratic process
of a deliberative theory that takes empathy seriously"
Chapter
2. The Deliberative Turn in Democratic Theory For the past several decades, democratic theory has taken a deliberative
turn, and yet, as Samuel Freeman notes, “There is no settled and
commonly accepted account of the central features of a deliberative
democracy among political scientists and theorists” (2000, 373). In
order to recognize why deliberative democracy ought to take affect and
empathy more seriously,...
Deliberation as Reflective Decision-Making
Legitimacy
and Public Reason: John Rawls
Legitimacy
and Rationality: Jurgen Hagermas
Bernard
Manin's Challenge
Deliberation and Affect
"One of the
reasons deliberative democrats miss the importance of empathy is that
they have not sufficiently addressed the role of affect in
deliberation. I believe this is due, at least in part, to their
tendencies to fall back upon conceptualizations of reflection,
rationality, and reasoning that give precedence to cognition over
affect in human judgment."
Chapter
3. The Elusive Concept of Empathy As Nancy Eisenberg and Janet Strayer explain, “Because of its
wide-ranging application, the notion of empathy is, and always has been,
a broad, some-what slippery concept—one that has provoked considerable
speculation, excitement, and confusion” (1987, 3). Jonathan Levy goes
even further to state that the “word empathy has been troublesome since
it entered the...
[History of
the word/concept of empathy]
Einfuhlung,
Aesthetics, and Wit
Robert Vischer
- explaining aesthetic appreciation
Theodor Lipps
- conceiving Einfuhlung as including reactions to humans
Sigmund Freud
- "Freud imbues Einfuhlung with a much stronger sense of cognition
than his predecessors..."
The
Confusion of Empathy
Edward B.
Titchener - translates Einfuhlung into English as the word empathy.
"In this
particular instance, the picture is combined with an empathic
attitude: all such 'feelings' - feelings of it, and why, and
nevertheless, and therefore - normally take the form, in my
experience, of motor empathy" (Titchener 185)
Gardner Murphy
- reflects the problematic state of the concept of empathy
Empathy as a Cognitive Process: Psychotherapy
John Dollard
Neal E. Miller
Carl Rogers
-
empathy "a powerful force for change and growth"
Mark Davis
- "It is a growing belief among empathy theorists and researchers that
there are both affective and cognitive components to empathic
response. Davis "
Instead of
defining empathy solely as affective responses or cognitive reactions,
the multidimensional approach recognizes that affect and cognition are
intertwined in empathy."
Michael uses the Davis Model of
Empathy as the empathy framework.
Process
Intrapersonal Outcomes
Empathy as
Process
Martha Nussbaum - "Nussbaum discusses the relationship between empathy and
compassion, while her substantive conclusion is that "empathy is a
mental ability highly relevant to compassion, although it is both
fallible and morally neutral""
"I believe we
should follow Rogers instead and model empathy as a process, not a
state: I will therefore refer to this as the process model of empathy.
This will clarify that empathy is not, in and of itself, a feeling and
will focus our attention on those factors that influence the process,
the mechanism by which it occurs, and the various outcomes that can
result from empathizing."
Empathy and Sympathy
Gustav Jahoda
Adam Smith and
Hume - "call "sympathy" as one of the outcomes of empathizing."
Chapter
4. Empathy in Deliberative Theory Most deliberative theorists pay scant specific attention to empathy, and
while using the process model of empathy reveals that this silence is
not as pervasive as it may seem on the surface, their theories still
miss some of empathy’s important contributions. In order for theories of
deliberative democracy to address the tension between equal
consideration and legitimacy, we must...
"Most deliberative
theorists pays scant attention to empathy, and while using the process
model of empathy reveals that this silence is not as pervasive at it
may seem on the surface, their theories still miss some of empathy's
important contributions."
Ignoring Empathy: Deliberation
as Reflective Decision-Making
James Madison
Alexander Hamilton
Bessette
Friskin
Impeding
Empathy: Rawls, the Original Position, and Public Reason
Rawls
Susan Moller Okin
Sharon Krause
Michael Sandel
Richard Dagger
Inhibiting Empathy: Hagermas and the Generalized Other
Hagermas
Thomas McCarthy
G. H. Mead
"Habermas follows Mead in focusing on ideal role taking, not just
any form of role taking. Empathy serves ideal role taking by
allowing us to understand how others feel about a moral norm..."
"The inclusion of moral feelings and empathy as a necessary
disposition in moral discourse, I believe, results from Habermas's
recognition that excluding feelings from moral discourse is
untenable and unrealistic."
Incremental Inclusion of Empathy: Deliberative
Variations
"Deliberative theorists who follow Rawls and Habermas closely also
focus exclusively on the cognitive or role-taking dimension of
empathy and unsurprisingly pay little attention to its affective
side."
James Bohman: Uptake in Deliberation
William Rehg: Reason and Emotion
"Attempts to incorporate empathy into the moral point of view suggest
that 'feeling' (in some sense) could actually improve one's
understanding for the other's position, and thus allow for fairer
moral judgment."
Seya Benhabib: The Generalized Other and the Concrete
Other
Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson; Reciprocity and Mutual
Respect
little to say about empathy
Jane Mansbridge: Beyond Adversary Democracy
references empathy fairly frequently
empathy creation of common interests
"Empathy can lead individuals to make another's good their own.
Individual interests do not then overlap; instead, the separate
individuals fuse, in a sense, into one" Mansbridge
parallel effect response
"the rule of consensus seems not only to reflect empathy but to
create it" Mansbridge
Robert Goodin: Internal-Reflective Deliberation
empathetic imaging can substitute for interpersonal conversations
Summary:
"We have seen the most deliberative theorists focus primarily on the
cognitive proactive of perspective taking, and they often argue
for this in generalized or abstract terms."
Notes: reason, rational argument, affect, little or no time discussing
empathy, most deliberative theorists focus mainly on cognitive empathy
- perspective/role taking
Chapter
5. Empathy's Importance- The Empirical Evidence We now have a model of the empathic process that allows us to discuss
the various aspects of empathy in a more complete way, but I have yet to
make the case that such an account is vital to our understanding of
deliberative democracy. There are both empirical and theoretical reasons
why I believe that the process model of empathy I have defended is
necessary for...
Polarization
Sunstein :
examples of the tendency for deliberative groups to polarize
Empathy and
Individual Biases
Empathy and
Out-groups
Altruism
and helping behaviour
Reciprocity
and the Commitment to Continued Deliberation
Implications of Empirical Research
conclusions
"it appear
highly likely that we need citizens to engage in the process of
empathy if deliberative democracy is to function properly."
"we ought to
include empathy as pat of democratic education"
"try to induce
empathy in the deliberative democratic system itself."
"I will
demonstrate that we need to entirely recast deliberative theory by
placing the empathic process at the heart of deliberation. This is the
only way for us to insure that democracy can move toward fulfilling
its promise to give all citizens equal consideration and still allow
for legitimate democratic decisions,"
Chapter
6. Deliberative Democracy and its Critics The empirical evidence indicates that the process of empathy is
necessary if deliberative democracy is going to function as conceived in
the core deliberative theories. Without empathizing citizens,
deliberative democracy will likely be no more than a talkative form of
aggregative democracy. Yet there is an alternative, further-reaching
conclusion suggested by this evidence: constructing a theory of
deliberative democracy with the process model of empathy required a
shift in our thinking about the purpose of deliberation and it's
connection to democratic legitimacy.
Affect, cognition, and Reason
The Centrality of Effect in Political Reasoning
Giving affect Its Place: Deliberation and Empathy
"I
believe that deliberative theory can answer the criticisms of
political psychologists and political theorists by relying upon the
process model of empathy."
Deliberative Theorists on Rhetoric, Greeting, Narrative, and Testimony
Beyond Agonism
Chapter
7. Empathy and Democracy Democracy needs the process of empathy. At the end of Chapter 5 I argued
that deliberative theories, in order to address the empirical evidence,
had to take the empathic process more seriously. The theoretical
critiques surveyed in the previous chapter, though, make even more
serious claims about the viability of deliberative democracy. The most
persuasive way to...
"The most
persuasive way to answer those claims is to adopt a new model of
deliberation that gives empathy a central place in democracy. Even
more important, adopting a model of deliberative democracy that
incorporates the process of empathy will allow me to demonstrate how
democracy can make legitimate decisions while fulfilling its promise
to give equal consideration to all citizens."
Deliberation, Reflective Consideration and Empathy
Empathy and
Defining Deliberation
"My argument
is that democracy can deal with this problem by defining democracy as
deliberation that puts empathy at its heart..."
"Having
demonstrated empathy's centrality to deliberation, we can now provide
a final definition: deliberation is a practice in which people
contemplate a political object by engaging in an inclusive, attentive
'communicative exchange that promotes the exchange of information and
the process of empathy.
Critics of
Empathy's Role in Deliberation
The Process
Model of Empathy and the Limits of Communication
Legitimacy,
Justification, and Manin's Challenge
"Thus, a
deliberative theory that takes empathy seriously leads to a more equal
consideration of all affected by decisions. Yet democracy still
involves making collective decisions that must be legitimate, and so
now I turn to the question of how deliberation with a focus on
empathy can support democratic legitimacy."
The Problem
of Justification
Manin's
Challenge
Empathy and
Democratic Legitimacy
"The process
of empathy is necessary for democratic legitimacy because it insures
that majorities will make decisions with better knowledge of what
those decisions mean."
"People who
empathize not only understand the logical arguments of those with whom
they disagree, the will gain a better knowledge of the thoughts and
feelings that inform those arguments."
"Requiring
that deliberative reflections include empathy will make it more likely
that majorities are conscious of how their actions affect minorities,
and if this leads to hesitation by majorities, in most cases well be a
positive development. Yet empathy also required minorities to
empathize with majorities, and so it does not ask that one side
sacrifice more that the other. Empathy may also lead minorities to
realize more keenly what they are asking for when they claim that the
majority should not decide as they intend."
"The more the
deliberation that precedes a decision includes all citizen in a free
exchange of perspectives and induces them to empathize with one
another, the more legitimate it will be."
Empathy and
Feasibility of Deliberative Democracy
The Problem
of Economy
"Rather that
having to assimilate individuals or groups under discourses,
deliberation that includes empathy allows people to consider the
interests of many individuals and groups, even those who cannot speak
- the excluded, the environment, nonhuman species, and those not yet
born."
"The process
of empathy is the only viable way to overcome the problems of economy
by making all citizens present in democratic deliberation to as great
an extent as possible, yet we must not limit empathy only to formal
political institutions. "
The
Problems of Deliberation in Practice
Do People
Even Want to Deliberate
Empathy and
the Democratic Promise
Empathy and
the Democratic Practice
Election
Financing, Lobbying, and a Federal Deliberation Commission
Empathy and
the Democratic Promise
"only by
placing empathy at the heart of deliberation can democracy fulfill its
promise of allowing legitimate decisions that give equal consideration
to all those in society."
“Empathy and
Democracy demonstrates the importance of empathy in the deliberative
practices that make democratic government legitimate. Deftly
interweaving empirical research on the role of empathy in deliberation
with a normative theory of democratic legitimacy, Morrell delivers a
thoroughly researched, carefully argued book that will significantly
revise conventional notions of how democratic deliberation ought to be
conducted. It is valuable not only for the conceptual clarification it
provides, but also for the way that it ties normative theorizing about
democratic deliberation and legitimacy to empirically verifiable facts
about human psychology and patterns of social interaction.” Sharon R.
Krause, Brown University
"The answer to these difficult questions is simple for Morrell. Empathy
can help us become better democrats."
"Empathy serves as Morrell's critical wedge to evaluate the current
state of deliberative theory. "
"For Morrell, empathy leads
to
openness toward others (125),
reciprocity (115),
tolerance (115),
mutual respect (115),
Inclusion,
attentiveness, cooperation (116) and fairness.
Empathy also leads to ‘legitimate, justified democratic
decision-making that truly takes all into consideration’ (194).
Without empathy, democracy will be a broken promise."
"One of the challenges for democracies is to not only
give voice to citizens, but to ensure that collective decision making
considers the views of all citizens equally. To Michael Morrell, one way
to do this is by integrating empathy into deliberation. In Empathy and
Democracy, Morrell explores the place for empathy within deliberative
politics, particularly in communications between citizens but also in
the internal consideration implied by deliberative reasoning.
Scholars of deliberative theory have traditionally emphasized the
importance of reason over emotion and cognition over affect. When people
are emotional about politics, we worry that their passions will disrupt
the deliberative process and distract them from careful contemplation of
the evidence. But in the empirical study of citizen behavior within
political psychology, there is increasing recognition that emotions are
not antithetical to deliberative democracy. Emotional reactions of fear
and anxiety can encourage attentiveness and learning, and feelings of
enthusiasm can inspire political engagement. In light of these empirical
findings, Morrell argues that affect deserves greater consideration in
theoretically defining the practice of deliberative democracy."
