Abstract
Are there limits to what it is morally okay to imagine? More particularly, is imaginatively inhabiting morally suspect perspectives something that is off-limits for truly virtuous people? In this paper, I investigate the surprisingly fraught relation between virtue and a familiar form of imaginative perspective taking I call empathy. I draw out a puzzle about the relation between empathy and virtuousness. First, I present an argument to the effect that empathy with vicious attitudes is not, in fact, something that the fully virtuous person can indulge in. At least one prominent way of thinking about the psychology of the virtuous person excludes the possibility that the virtuous could emotionally apprehend the world in a less than virtuous way, and empathizing with vicious outlooks does seem to run afoul of that restriction. Then, I develop an argument that runs in the contrary direction: virtue in fact requires empathy with vicious outlooks, at least in some situations. There is reason to think that a crucial part of being virtuous is ministering effectively to others’ needs, and there is also reason to think that other people may need to be empathized with, even if their emotional outlooks are at least minorly vicious. Finally, I outline two different solutions to this puzzle. Both solutions hold some promise, but they also bring new challenges in their train.
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Notes
Hume is generally regarded as having kicked off this conversation with his claim in “Of the Standard of Taste” that “where vicious manners are described, without being marked with the proper characters of blame and disapprobation; this must be allowed to disfigure the poem, and to be a real deformity. I cannot, nor is it proper I should, enter into such sentiments” (1987 [1777], p. 254, my emphasis). Key more contemporary work that touches on the morality (rather than just the possibility) of imaginative engagement with “immoral” fictions includes Moran (1994), Walton (1994), Jacobson (1997), and Mullin (2004).
“Empathy” has many uses, and some prominent uses do not match mine. Accounts that use “empathy” to designate at least some mental states or activities that do not involve perspective taking include Gordon (1995), Nichols (2001), Snow (2000), Hoffman (2001), Slote (2015), and Batson (2009). Accounts that use “empathy” to designate at least some mental states or activities that do not involve emotional matching or harmonization on the part of the empathizer include Aaltola (2014), Paul (2017), Andrews and Gruen (2014), Preston and de Waal (2002), and Batson (2009). My use is close to that of Sherman (1998), Matravers (2011), and Coplan (2011). It also mirrors Kaupinnen’s characterization of “combined empathy” (Kaupinnen 2014) and Darwall’s characterization of “proto-sympathetic projective empathy” (Darwall 2011). Readers with qualms about my use of “empathy” may substitute in “emotionally harmonizing/matching imaginative perspective taking.”
Commonly, but not universally. Bloom (2016) argues that empathy ultimately does more moral harm than good, in part because our capacities for empathy are so limited and uneven. Prinz (2011) takes a similar tack, but his target phenomenon is not clearly the same as mine: it is unclear if Prinz thinks that empathy necessarily involves imaginative perspective taking.
For arguments to the effect that empathy plays an important role in generating and supporting moral motivation, see e.g. Batson et al. (2003), Batson (2011), Hoffman (2001), Sherman (1998), Maibom (2007), and Slote (2015). For arguments to the effect that empathy is morally significant in part because it helps inform us of others’ needs, see e.g. Matravers (2011), Masto (2015), and Oxley (2011). For the claim that empathy contributes to the formation of moral judgments, see e.g. D’Arms (2000), Slote (2007), and Kaupinnen (2014).
As Smuts (2016) points out, it may be particularly productive to ethically evaluate imaginative activity and/or dispositions in virtue theoretic terms because doing so allows us to make robust moral assessments even when individuals’ control over their activities or dispositions is unclear or doubtful, and our imaginative activity is one of those things that we might doubt we are always in control of.
This suggestion would also fit in well with the recent broad movement to highlight various contributions that imagination (and more specifically the trait of being imaginative) makes to moral excellence. See e.g. Johnson (1993), Kekes (2006), Chappell (2017), Bommarito (2017), and Babbitt (1996). For an argument that empathy itself is not a virtue, see Battaly (2011).
This could include, for instance, the misrepresentation of a truly urgent moral need as merely a weak reason for action.
For explorations of this idea in the Confucian tradition, see e.g. Ivanhoe (1990), Sligerland (2003), and Sarkissian (2010). Swanton (2003) develops this idea in the context of a virtue ethical theory significantly inspired by Nietzsche. See Gyekye (1987, Ch. 9) for discussion in the context of Akan virtue ethics.
McDowell’s view is primarily developed in a series of papers collected in McDowell (1998). See especially “Virtue and reason” and “Are moral requirements hypothetical imperatives?”. McDowell’s account represents only one way of articulating the idea that virtue consists at least partly in a characteristic form of evaluative apprehension, of course, and his account has been the target of significant criticism from other virtue theorists, including other neo-Aristotelians. See footnote 13 for other accounts of virtue sympathetic to the McDowellian picture, and see footnotes 15–17 for accounts critical of it.
See Baxley (2007) for an alternative list of possible interpretations that overlaps with this one.
The emphasis is Foot’s own. Foot and McDowell are not alone in thinking that virtue may involve not seeing morally bad courses of action as attractive. Other contemporary defenders and sympathizers include Trianosky (1988), Vasiliou (1996), Little (1995), Jollimore (2011), and Vigani (2019). Herman (1996) develops an account of desire and character that offers a way to vindicate claims like Foot’s from a Kantian perspective. See Hursthouse (1999) for an account of virtuous practical perception that overlaps considerably with both Foot’s and McDowell’s, while raising some doubts about the comprehensive application of McDowell’s silencing thesis.
Blackburn memorably characterizes as to be “jettisoned” those “elements of the virtue tradition…that rhapsodize over the special nature supposedly belonging to virtuous persons, such as their special immunity to temptation, or the way in which their virtue 'silences' all their other dispositions. For it seems to turn out that this god-like nature belongs to nobody, and represents an ideal to which nobody can approximate” (1998, p. 37). See also Baxley (2007). Seidman (2005) offers a partial refutation of this objection.
Even some of its detractors allow that the view has considerable intuitive appeal; Stark (2001) goes so far as to label it the “common sense” account.
Many empathy researchers distinguish between cognitive and affective empathy. See e.g., Hoffman (2011), Batson (2009), Aaltola (2014), Kaupinnen (2014), and Paul (2017). Some theorists who embrace this distinction hold that the former type of perspective taking doesn’t at all engage our conative or emotional capacities. Is there actually such a thing as perspective taking that is totally “cold,” that doesn’t at all engage our conative or emotional capacities? Some are broadly skeptical of the category of purely cognitive empathy [see e.g. Hobson and Hobson (2014), Deigh (1995), and Noddings (2013)]. Admittedly, some matters do seem like more plausible subjects for cold perspective taking than others do. Perhaps we can imaginatively inhabit another’s perspective concerning a math problem without any emotional engagement [though see Noddings (2013, pp. 15–16)]. But what would it even mean to imaginatively take up another’s terrified perception of a spider as menacing without at all engaging our emotional capacities? Maybe we could suppose that the proposition “the spider is menacing” is true without thereby engaging our emotional capacities, but that suppositional activity is a far cry from actually picturing the spider as menacing [Moran (1994) makes a similar point]. At any rate, I will not argue here that purely cognitive empathy is impossible; I am only interested in the limitations on empathy that is emotionally live, since this is a sort of empathy we seem to particularly need from others.
It is important to stress that this conclusion pertains only to empathy in the sense of emotionally harmonizing/matching imaginative perspective taking. There is no reason to think that the gap between virtuous and non-virtuous perception will limit the virtuous person’s empathy for the non-virtuous, if by “empathy” we instead mean distress at witnessing another’s suffering [see Batson (2009), Hoffman (2001, Ch. 3)] or concern for another who is suffering [see Batson (2009), Eisenberg and Eggum (2009)]. Similarly, the claim I am making does not carry over to empathy in the sense of knowledge of another person’s inner state. As I argue below, a virtuous person need not be hampered in their ability to predict others’ inner states.
See also Hursthouse (1999): “[T]he reasons the virtuous agent gives will not make her actions fully comprehensible to the cowardly, intemperate, untrustworthy and dishonest… She would like someone else to have some of what's available—why, when she could take it herself? Why is she making such a point of keeping her promise or telling the truth in this case when all it's going to do is cause her trouble?— It's pointless” (p. 130).
Morton (2011) is an exception. He does affirm that our “decency” can be empathetically “blinkering” (p. 318). According to Morton, the decent will struggle to empathize with the indecent, and may also struggle to assess the accuracy of their empathetic efforts vis-à-vis indecent perspectives.
If that is right, then the problem we confront is not just a conceptual problem about whether the condition of full virtue (a condition that may never have been instantiated by an actual human being, given the demandingness of the concept of virtue we are considering) is hypothetically compatible with empathy for vicious perspectives. Many real people are such that certain kinds of immoral possibilities do not show up as attractive for them, and we can ask (1) whether their empathetic capacities are therefore partially restricted, and (2) whether this is in any way morally regrettable. I thank a reviewer for inviting this clarification.
Morton (2011) argues that the barriers decent people face in empathizing with the indecent are worrisome because they interfere with decent people’s ability to anticipate others’ choices (which in turn makes interpersonal coordination difficult). I do not deny that the virtuous person may have to work especially hard to accurately anticipate less virtuous people’s choices, but I do think this is not the only reason to worry about the empathetic limitations I’ve been describing.
Aristotle tells us that virtue is “correct” or “successful” (katorthotikos) (NE 1104b34). The Stoics, likewise, posit that virtue requires “successful” action (katorthoma) [see Annas (2003, Ch. 2)]. In modern times, Zagzebski (1997) tells us that a virtue is “a deep and enduring acquired excellence of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain desired end and reliable success at bringing about that end” (p. 137). Annas (2003) similarly holds that success is an important part of virtue, but claims that we can fail to achieve particular ends without impugning our virtue so long as we “do everything we can” (p. 26).
On the needs generated by loneliness, see Roberts and Krueger forthcoming. See also Kraut (2007) on isolation and loneliness in relation to flourishing.
The claim that we have both material and psychological needs that must be met in order for us to flourish is widely but not universally accepted. Stoics, for example, would refuse it.
I’ve suggested that emotions do typically centrally involve evaluative perceptions, but I allow that some states we might wish to count as emotions do not. Think of a general feeling of malaise, for instance. For discussion of other possible candidates for emotions that do not involve evaluative perception, see e.g. Thalburg (1964), Lamb (1987), and Price (2006).
Small children and animals are likely not capable of appreciating their emotions’ intelligibility at all, and it is certainly not the case that adult humans always attend to their emotions’ intelligibility, either.
I defend this claim at greater length in Bailey forthcoming.
Note that the qualifications I introduce above will also apply in the case of empathetic emotion: if we do not reflectively attend to our empathetic emotion and/or if our empathetic emotion does not centrally involve an evaluative perception, then we will not grasp the intelligibility of our empathetic emotion, and by extension we will not grasp the intelligibility of the original emotion of which it is the counterpart.
I could even approve of your schadenfreude, although that might be a surprising position for me to take; it is possible to endorse attitudes that are not intelligible to us. See Stocker and Hegeman (1996) and Johnston (2007) for defenses of the claim that what one finds intelligible can diverge from what one judges to be correct.
Because we secure humane understanding of an emotion by apprehending the situation in the relevant emotional light, humane understanding is not available through unemotional engagement with the situation. The activity that some researchers call “cognitive empathy,” which by hypothesis does not involve emotional engagement, is thus not a source of humane understanding. See Stueber (2010, p. 160) for another argument to the effect that emotional engagement plays an ineliminable role in securing some forms of other-oriented understanding. For further discussion of the nature and value of humane understanding, see Bailey forthcoming.
Betzler (2019) offers an account of empathy’s relational significance that similarly emphasizes its role in supporting valuable intimacy.
I also doubt whether denying imperfect people humane understanding is a particularly good means of encouraging their progress in virtue. Evidence from therapeutic contexts suggests that humane understanding may be particularly effective in helping people move from distorted, self-destructive emotional patterns to healthier, more accurate modes of emotional apprehension. See Cherkis (2018) and Bailey (forthcoming).
And even when it is needed, perhaps sometimes we only need relatively shallow empathy. But if I am struggling with my temptation not to report the manufacturing problem, and you, virtuous as you are, can only empathize at a very shallow level– “I can understand caring to keep my job in general, but I cannot see keeping my job as an attractive prospect when doing so is immoral!”– well, that shallow empathy seems unlikely to be fully satisfying. In fact, shallow empathy may sometimes add insult to injury.
That navigational project will include the activity of imagining oneself in different scenarios for planning purposes. Deciding what to do often involves this kind of imaginative projection. Hence, the contrast between one’s “home” sensibility and one’s other available sensibilities is not equivalent to a contrast between a sensibility we apply in action, on the one hand, and a sensibility we deploy in imagining, on the other.
I thank a reviewer for drawing my attention to this question.
This claim is sometimes made in the course of distinguishing between two forms of empathy, or two forms of imaginative activity related to empathy: imagining being oneself in another’s situation and imagining being the other in the other’s situation. See e.g. Kaupinnen (2014, p. 101) Oxley (2011, pp. 18–22), and Hoffman (2001, p. 54ff). However, there are reasons to doubt that that latter distinction can survive scrutiny; see Fleischacker (2019, p. 177) and Bailey forthcoming for arguments that this binary framing will struggle to accommodate cases where it is, intuitively, indeterminate whether we are imagining being ourselves.
D’Arms (2000) makes a similar point in different terms.
Even if it turns out to be psychologically plausible to say that multiple sensibilities are first-personally available to us, aside from our home sensibility, we might also worry that we end up simply relocating the problem of empathy between the virtuous and non-virtuous, such that it now becomes an intrapersonal issue. How transparent and intelligible can the diverse emotional perspectives Virtuous Multiplicity posits be to each other? Will the virtuous person end up looking strangely fragmented, a bearer of multiple mutually unintelligible perspectives?
Admittedly, some of the reasons for this thought’s appeal may not be philosophically respectable: as a reviewer pointed out, it provides a convenient excuse for not working on our own character flaws.
My thanks to audiences at Princeton University, Rice University, Washington University, and the University of California, Berkeley for their questions. Thanks also to the members of the New Orleans Philosophy, Politics, and Economics workshop, and to Uriah Kriegel, Barrett Emerick, and Denise Vigani for their comments and assistance.
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Bailey, O. Empathy with vicious perspectives? A puzzle about the moral limits of empathetic imagination. Synthese 199, 9621–9647 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03219-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03219-z