Especially since the discovery of mirror neurons, scholars in a variety of disciplines have made empathy a central focus of research. Yet despite this recent flurry of interest and activity, the cross-cultural study of empathy in context, as part of ongoing, naturally occurring behavior, remains in its infancy. In the present article, I review some of this recent work on the ethnography of empathy. I focus especially on the new issues and questions about empathy that the ethnographic approach raises and (...) the implication of these for the study of empathy more generally. (shrink)

I strongly agree with Main and Kho’s primary contention that a relational approach can provide clarity regarding how empathy-related processes become increasingly coordinated over the lifespan. However, I go further to suggest that their “relational approach” should be expanded to include the larger social, cultural, economic, political, and moral contexts that shape and influence more intimate interpersonal relations, including empathic processes. Such an ethnographic, comparative approach has the advantage of helping us ascertain the extent to which empathic processes vary in (...) different times and places, but also aids us in identifying more accurately what is most “basic” or translocal about these processes. (shrink)

I respond to two basic questions raised by my commentators: (a) What is the proper definition of empathy?; (b) What is the morality of empathy?