1,720,971 research outputs found
Empathy, Sympathy, and Morality: An Interdisciplinary Approach
No full textEmpathy has been used for at least three purposes in the literature (e.g., Coplan, Goldie 2011):for understanding our acquaintance to works of art, the content of others’ minds, and for its allegedcontribution to moral behavior and moral judgment. I will discuss specifically empathy’scontribution in the understanding of others’ emotional states and in ethics.The aim of this work, thus, is showing that we can understand empathy as a basic mechanism for sharing. It enables us to understand others and facilitates our moral judgment and behavior. This higher ability is made possible by empathy. However, in order to reach it various steps arenecessary. It is not the case that having empathy as a basic mechanism directly leads to this higher ability, nor that the latter is the only way in which human beings can have a moral understanding of the world. I will deal with this topic in Chapters 3, 4, and 5.Before moving to these issues, that constitute the core of my interests, it will be necessary to sketch a theory of emotions and related phenomena. Chapter 1 will focus on the possible objects of sharing by means of a characterization of the phenomena that fall within the affective domain. In Chapter 2, I will show the growth of the debate about empathy and sympathy in the literature by aquantitative analysis of bibliometrics. Then, I will argue against a possible interpretation of empathy as an umbrella concept. Conceptual clarification, thus, will turn out to be necessary. In Chapter 3 I will try to define empathy as a basic mechanism contrasting it with other phenomena that are related to it, but cannot be identified with it. In Chapter 4, I will distinguish empathy from sympathy, interpreting the first as an amoral mechanism, and the latter as a criterion to judge others’ behaviors, direct one’s own, and understand others. This aim will be achieved primarily by an interpretation of Adam Smith’s theory of moral sentiments (Smith 1759).At a first approximation, empathy is what enables us to share others’ emotions and sympathy is a more reflective ability to understand others’ behaviors and affective phenomena, to judge them, andto direct our own behavior. Adopting the sympathetic and impartial spectator’s perspective willconstitute the basis for virtue. I will also understand sadism or Schadenfreude as the opposite ofsympathetic engagement.Chapter 5 will focus on the relation between empathy as a psychological mechanism and sympathy as a moral criterion. The core idea is that empathy can enable the development of a sympathetic concern for others, but the latter constitutes just a possible development of the former. Iwill also sketch the possible relation between descriptive and prescriptive accounts endorsing a nonreductionistversion of naturalism
Sentire e agire. L'etica della simpatia tra sentimentalismo e razionalismo
No full textUno degli scopi centrali di questo lavoro è comprendere adeguatamente il concetto di simpatia per risolvere l’apparente tensione tra descrizione e prescrizione. La simpatia viene definita come uno strumento di condivisione che permette il giudizio e la direzione del comportamento
morale. L’empatia funge da condizione di possibilità della simpatia, ma si colloca su un
piano descrittivo puramente amorale. Distinguere questi due concetti è fondamentale per comprendere se e in che misura sia lecito pensare alla possibilità di un passaggio dalla
descrizione alla normazione. Il processo simpatetico si caratterizza come strumento e metodo
utile a determinare l’agire e fissare le condizioni per un giudizio a posteriori dell’azione, sia propria sia altrui (Smith 1759). Non ne deriva una lista di doveri, ma un criterio per giudicare
e agire moralmente. È mediante tale criterio che si può comprendere il passaggio dalla descrizione di un’abilità “naturale” al comportamento di un soggetto morale
Trust, implicit attitudes, and the malleability of group identities
No full textSeveral empirical evidences suggest that our group identity modulates our trusting attitudes, even when groups are created arbitrarily in the lab. Hence, group are malleable entities. While it clearly bears huge risks of malevolent manipulation, this malleability can also be an opportunity: it seems at least theoretically possible to manipulate the sense of belonging – and the automatic trust that follows from it – so as to include people that were previously conceived of as belonging to other groups. I will, thus, investigate two lines of research to be used to show that there are several implicit drives that actually modulate our trusting attitudes. From this, a revision of our ordinary conceptualization of trust seems necessary. Hence, I proposed a two-level characterization of trust that would better serve the purposes of accounting for the data discussed and for the role trust can and should play in ethics
The Experts, the Virtuous and the Wounded. Who Should Take Part in an «Ideal Conversation»?
No full textElisabetta Lalumera and Sarah Songhorian discuss Philip Kitcher’s Moral Progress. Lalumera focuses on the notion of «ideal conversation» as central to Kitcher’s democratic contractualism, raising concerns about the criteria for inclusion, the role of expertise, and the tension between inclusivity and the requirement for virtuous participants. Songhorian explores the interplay between individual and social dimensions of moral progress, highlighting Kitcher’s rejection of teleological or discovery-based conceptions in favor of a pragmatic, problem-solving approach
Breve introduzione - Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Breve introduzione - Ethics of Values. A New Attempt towards the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism. The New Italian Translation by Roberta Guccinelli
No full textRoberta Guccinelli (Member of the Max Scheler Gesellschaft) has just
published the new Italian translation of Formalism in Ethics and Non-formal Ethics of Values: A New Attempt Toward the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism (Bompiani, 2013). Her translation is also accompanied by the original German text and by an extensive analytic index.
The Formalism constitutes Max Scheler’s “opus magnum” and a model for thinking about moral and practical issues without leaving life aside. From a holistic perspective of axiological perception, this work presents a solid theory of value, that is antithetic to both relativism and absolutism in ethics. Scheler’s attempt was also that of providing a new foundation for a new personalism
Empatia e generazioni future
No full textScopo di questo lavoro è indagare il rapporto che sussiste tra l’empatia e la motivazione ad agire moralmente a vantaggio delle generazioni future (Brown et al. 2019). La ricerca – empirica e filosofica – contemporanea ha, infatti, mostrato i molti limiti dell’empatia: essa è più forte con chi è più vicino e più simile a noi. Tali limiti rendono l’empatia spesso troppo ristretta e parrocchiale (Fuchs, 2019; Bloom, 2017; Oakley, 2011; Prinz, 2011). Ci si può pertanto chiedere se essa sia una guida affidabile per motivare i soggetti ad agire moralmente nei confronti delle generazioni future, che sono per definizione lontane da noi. Sosterrò, pertanto, che l’empatia e le emozioni immediate sono insufficienti per gestire il caso delle generazioni future – e, più in generale, tutti i casi in cui sono implicati altri distanti. In secondo luogo, discuterò la possibilità che le emozioni regolate e la simpatia svolgano questo ruolo. Infatti, regolando ed educando le emozioni, si aggiunge una componente cosciente o “razionale”, che permetterebbe di evitare i pregiudizi e le limitazioni a cui sono soggetti i fenomeni affettivi immediati (Sauer, 2012, 2017; Kauppinen, 2014, 2017). Tale componente “razionale” permetterebbe anche di fornire un criterio per distinguere i casi in cui le emozioni ci spingono in direzioni moralmente accettabili da quelli in cui gli esiti sono inaccettabili. Infine, verrà considerata la tradizione sentimentale, con particolare attenzione alle tesi di Adam Smith (Smith, 1790). La simpatia dello spettatore imparziale costituisce, infatti, un esempio di come una sintonizzazione emotiva regolata ed educata permette di affrontare alcune delle numerose questioni morali che le generazioni future solleveranno
Environmental agency, moral reasoning, and moral disengagement in adults
No full textTo assess the relationships between environmental agency, prosocial moral reasoning, and civic moral disengagement, 544 community-dwelling adults were administered the image-based Environmental Agency Scale (EAS), the Prosocial Moral Reasoning Objective Measure (PROM), and the Civic Moral Disengagement Scale (CMDS). The EAS Agentic Self and Agentic Other dimensions proved to be reliable measures and showed adequate factor validity. Mean/median score comparisons between EAS Agentic Self Scale and Agentic Other Scale scores indicated that participants viewed society-level actions as more relevant than individual-level actions when environment defense is at issue. Partial correlation analysis results showed that environmental agentic self was grounded in individual differences in prosocial moral reasoning. Civic moral disengagement yielded negative associations with EAS Agentic Other Scale scores, providing further support to the relevance of moral disengagement process in environmental sensitivity. These results may improve our understanding of environmental agency and its connections with prosocial moral reasoning and moral disengagement.To assess the relationships between environmental agency, prosocial moral reasoning, and civic moral disengagement, 544 community-dwelling adults were administered the image-based Environmental Agency Scale (EAS), the Prosocial Moral Reasoning Objective Measure (PROM), and the Civic Moral Disengagement Scale (CMDS). The EAS Agentic Self and Agentic Other dimensions proved to be reliable measures and showed adequate factor validity. Mean/median score comparisons between EAS Agentic Self Scale and Agentic Other Scale scores indicated that participants viewed society-level actions as more relevant than individual-level actions when environment defense is at issue. Partial correlation analysis results showed that environmental agentic self was grounded in individual differences in prosocial moral reasoning. Civic moral disengagement yielded negative associations with EAS Agentic Other Scale scores, providing further support to the relevance of moral disengagement process in environmental sensitivity. These results may improve our understanding of environmental agency and its connections with prosocial moral reasoning and moral disengagement
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