NYU Center for Bioethics

A widespread view in moral psychology holds that empathy and sympathy play key roles in morality and in prosocial and altruistic actions. Recently, some psychologists and philosophers have challenged this trend, arguing that empathy does not play a foundational or causal role in morality. The anti-empathic view has two major theses. First: empathy is not a necessary precondition for moral approval and disapproval. Second: empathy is prone to biases that render it potentially harmful and frequently produce morally undesirable results. The counterintuitive conclusions are that empathy plays no essential role in morality and that it interferes negatively with the ends of morality; therefore, it should not be cultivated. In this talk Dr. Claudia Passos-Ferreira argues against both theses.