Empathy, Group Identity, and the Mechanisms of Exclusion: An Investigation into the Limits of Empathy

Topoi 38 (1):239-250 (2019)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

There is a conspicuous tendency of humans to experience empathy and sympathy preferentially towards members of their own group, whereas empathetic feelings towards outgroup members or strangers are often reduced or even missing. This may culminate in a “dissociation of empathy”: a historical example are the cases of Nazi perpetrators who behaved as compassionate family men on the one hand, yet committed crimes of utter cruelty against Jews on the other. The paper aims at explaining such phenomena and at determining the limits of empathy. To this purpose, it first distinguishes between two levels of empathy, namely primary or intercorporeal and extended or higher-level empathy. It then investigates the mutual interconnection of empathy and recognition, which may be regarded as a principle of extending empathy to others regardless of whether they belong to one’s own group or not. However, this principle is in conflict with ingroup conformism and outgroup biases that hamper the universal extension of empathy. Thus, a denial of recognition and exclusion of others from one’s ingroup usually results in a withdrawal or lack of extended empathy which then influences primary empathy as well. On this basis, and using the historical example of mass executions during the Holocaust, the paper investigates the mechanisms of exclusion which may lead to a withdrawal of recognition and finally to a dissociation of empathy.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Empathy and Its Role in Morality.Meghan Masto - 2015 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 53 (1):74-96.
Similarity versus familiarity: When empathy becomes selfish.Elias L. Khalil - 2001 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (1):41-41.
Empathy and transformative experience without the first person point of view.Herman Cappelen & Josh Dever - 2017 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 60 (3):315-336.
In Defense of the Moral Significance of Empathy.Aaron Simmons - 2014 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 17 (1):97-111.
A Puzzle about Empathy.Adina L. Roskies - 2011 - Emotion Review 3 (3):378-280.
The Virtual Other: Empathy in the Age of Virtuality.Thomas Fuchs - 2014 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 21 (5-6):152-173.
Empathy and Intersubjectivity.Joshua May - 2017 - In Heidi Maibom (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Empathy. New York: Routledge. pp. 169-179.
Against Empathy.Jesse Prinz - 2011 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 49 (s1):214-233.
How to Be a Proponent of Empathy.Yujia Song - 2015 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18 (3):437-451.
What is Empathy For?Joel Smith - 2017 - Synthese 194 (3).

Analytics

Added to PP
2017-06-15

Downloads
71 (#209,912)

6 months
6 (#202,901)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

Empathy.Karsten Stueber - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Kränkung, Rache, Vernichtung.Thomas Fuchs - 2021 - Psyche 75 (4):318-350.
The Contribution of Empathy to Ethics.Sarah Songhorian - 2019 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 27 (2):244-264.
Adam Smith’s relevance for contemporary moral cognition.Sarah Songhorian - 2022 - Philosophical Psychology 35 (5):662-683.

View all 7 citations / Add more citations