Another journal review session from ‘Ethics and Culture’ took place on June 26, 2016, at the Meeting Room of BRACU Savar campus. Ms. Rudmila Mahbub, faculty member of Ethics and Culture, discussed the article titled “Is Empathy a virtue?” by Heather D. Battaly.
The reader began the session with a question the author himself asked: ‘Is empathy a virtue?’ She carries on by saying that according to the writer, pre-theoretically, empathy involves caring about, or sharing the emotions of, or knowing another person. To see this, we only need to consider paradigm cases of empathy; for example, the empathy of a close friend. The author states that a person who is empathic cares about others, shares in their emotional highs and lows, and reliably predicts their thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Furthermore, by referring to the author, Ms. Rudmila explained how we think that empathy in friends makes them better people, and that it is morally good to care, know about, and share the emotions of others. We also resoundingly agree that it is morally good for doctors, teachers, and even fellow citizens to be empathic. We regularly praise doctors and teachers for caring about their patients and students, and reproach them when they do not. We also commend the empathic citizen who stops to aid victims of an accident, and judge those who pass by to be of lesser character. Pre-theoretically, we think of empathy as a quality that makes us morally good.
The session continued by discussing how philosophers and psychologists have tried to improve our ordinary, pre-theoretical concept of empathy by making it more precise. However, the author argues that if we adopt their current ‘improved’ concepts of empathy, then empathy is neither a moral nor an intellectual virtue. Ms. Rudmila then talks about the four different concepts of empathy as shared by the author, among which the first is the ordinary, pre-theoretical concept of empathy discussed above and the other three are theoretical concepts. If we adopt any of the theoretical concepts that are prevalent in philosophical and psychological literature, then empathy is not a virtue. Yet, it was also pointed out that although these theoretical concepts of empathy conflict with our ordinary concept, this does not mean that we should reject the three concepts. Ordinary concepts do not automatically trump theoretical concepts and there are not enough grounds to do so either.
After the discussion, the floor was open for analysis and feedback. Several faculty members shared their views on the issue, after which the session came to an end.