Commentary: Empathy and its discontents

Frontiers in Psychology

Daniel Västfjäll¹ 

关键词: empathy;    compassion;    decision making;    psychic numbing;    public policy;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00542

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

One reading of Bloom is that he is not against empathy per se, but rather, against emotions in general (including empathy but also compassion, kindness, and love) as the motivator of moral decisions (see also commentary by Zaki, 2017). Bloom argues that utilitarian cost-benefit analyses and moral principles would be better guides for moral behavior. We agree that these are good alternatives for deciding what to do and what to avoid. However, it would not be fair to blame all biases on emotions. Previous work shows that biased cost-benefit analyses underlie the proportion dominance effect (saving 20 out of 25 rather than 22 out of 300), and perceived responsibility underlies the ingroup effect (helping few fellow countrymen rather than many from another country; Fetherstonhaugh et al., 1997; Erlandsson et al., 2015). Further, there is evidence that moral decisions made under intuitive modes of thinking are no different from those that are made deliberatively Tinghög et al., 2016). Although we believe that both empathy and compassion are poor guides when assessing what is right and wrong, emotional reactions can be useful tools for motivating people to act morally. For example, highly emotional information in the form of personal stories or dramatic images (such as the picture of Alan Kurdi—the dead Syrian boy on a beach in Turkey) is often the spark that motivates people to act (Slovic et al., 2017). In these situations, intense emotions can motivate people to e.g. start making monthly donations, which likely will continue long after the emotional reactions have disappeared, thus benefitting also statistical victims. Another related point is brought up by Zaki (2017)—affect and deliberation are intertwined and completely separating reason from feelings in moral decisions is likely an impossible task.

【 授权许可】

CC BY