Abstract
Many of us will find it intuitive that there exists an important link between the ability to feel
for others on the one hand and the ability to care for them and attend to their needs on the
other—that is, between a capacity for empathy and a capacity for morality. But spelling out
the details is hard to do. Not only must we say something about what having these distinct
capacities amounts to; there is also the problem of specifying how precisely empathy enables
morality. Does empathy provide cognitive or epistemic support, insofar as it enhances a
person’s moral sensibilities? Or does it simply provide motivational support by way of raising
the likelihood of morally praiseworthy behaviour? We may also ask questions in the other
direction: to what extent (if any) does a capacity for morality implicate or enhance a capacity
for empathy?