Abstract
This book has covered considerable territory, surveying the nature of empathy, its epistemic functions and how they are important to moral deliberation, why empathy alone is unsuitable as the sole basis of moral judgment, how contractual ethical theories model empathy, and how empathy can be used in moral education. By way of conclusion, I want to make clear the significance of the arguments that have gone before and discuss directions for further research on related topics that I have not treated in detail. There is a great deal of interesting work being done on topics related to empathy—including narrative approaches to empathy, empathy in animals, and empathy in religious ethics (which might see these topics differently from secular ethics)—that I have been unable to examine here.11 close by demonstrating the practical application of my argument as it applies to feminist ethics in particular.
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Notes
Examples include: Suzanne Keen (2007) Empathy and the Novel, New York: Oxford University Press;.
Marc Bekoff (2008) The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy—and Why They Matter, Novato, CA: New World Library;
Frans de Waal (2010) The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society, New York: Three Rivers Press;
Edward Farley (1996) Divine Empathy: A Theology of God, Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress.
Jessica Durando (2010) “Women More Generous, More Likely to Donate, Study Says,” USA Today, October 21. http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/mind-soul/doing-good/2010-10-21-1Acharity21_ST_N.htm. Accessed January 29, 2011.
Randy Lennon and Nancy Eisenberg (1987) “Gender and Age Differences in Empathy and Sympathy,” in Empathy and Its Development, Chapter 9.
Klein K. and Hodges S. (2001) “Gender Differences, Motivation, and Empathic Accuracy: When it Pays to Understand,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(6): 720–730. (Emphasis mine.)
See Claudia Strauss (2004) “Is Empathy Gendered and, If So, Why? An Approach from Feminist Psychological Anthropology,” Ethos, 32(4): 432–457.
Singer, T., Seymour, B., O’Doherty, J.P., Stephan, K.E., Dolan, R.J. and Frith, C.D. (2006) “Empathic Neural Responses are Modulated by the Perceived Fairness of Others,” Nature, 439: 466–469.
Yang, C.Y., Decety, J., Lee, S., Chen, G. and Cheng, Y. (2009) “Gender Differences in the Mu Rhythm During Empathy for Pain: An Electro- encephalographic Study,” Brain Research, 1251: 176–184.
For example, Alison Jaggar outlines four criteria of a feminist ethical theory, or a theory that serves women’s interests equally to men’s. These include (a) the assumption that women and men do not share precisely the same situation in life, (b) the theory recommends actions “that will tend to subvert rather than reinforce the present systematic subordination of women,” (c) it provides strategies for dealing with issues that arise in private or domestic life, and (d) it takes “the moral experience of all women seriously, though not, of course, uncritically,” Allison Jaggar, “Feminist Ethics” in L. Becker and C. Becker, eds. (1992) Encyclopedia of Ethics, New York: Garland Press, p. 364. See also Annette Baier (1985) “What Do Women Want in a Moral Theory?” Nous, 19: 53–63 for a similar argument.
Cheshire Calhoun, “Introduction,” in Cheshire Calhoun, ed. (2004) Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 13.
See Virginia Held (2006) The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, Global, Oxford: Oxford University Press;
Sara Ruddick (1995) Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace, Boston: Beacon Press
Rowman and Littlefield; Nel Noddings (1986) Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, Berkeley: University of California Press.
See for example: Martha C. Nussbaum (2001) Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press;
Nuss-baum, Martha (1990) Love’s Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press;
Greenspan, Patricia (1988) Emotions and Reasons: An Inquiry into Emotional Justification, New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall;
Patricia Greenspan (1995) Practical Guilt: Moral Dilemmas, Emotions and Social Norms, New York: Oxford University Press;
Lugones, Maria (1987) “Playfulness, ‘World’-traveling, and Loving Perception,” Hypatia, 2: 3–19.
Nancy Sherman (1998) “Empathy and Imagination,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy XXII: 82–119.
Jeannette Kennett (2002) “Autism, Empathy and Moral Agency,” The Philosophical Quarterly, 52(208): 345. She argues that the developmental literature also suggests that empathy gives “insight into other selves which is so epis- temically useful in our daily lives” and contributes to “the development of one’s own sense of self” (p. 356).
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© 2011 Julinna C. Oxley
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Oxley, J.C. (2011). Conclusion: Implications for Feminist Ethics. In: The Moral Dimensions of Empathy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230347809_8
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