Empathy Research Participants

Indiana University has received a grant from the University of Chicago (sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation) to study "Virtuous Empathy: Scientific and Humanistic Investigations" from fall 2010 to spring 2012. Richard B. Miller, Poynter Center director, is the PI for the project. Additional support ic coming from the IU Institute for Advanced Studies, directed by John Bodnar, the IU Office for the Vice Provost for Research, and the College of Arts and Sciences.

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Faculty Participants

Kate Abramson, Philosophy. A Hume scholar, ethicist and specialist in early modern philosophy, Abramson has published on a variety of topics with regard to empathy. These include historical questions such as those she addresses in her monograph, now in its final stages, on Hume's moral philosophy. She is now turning to her second project, a work on the history of sentimentalism prior to the 18th century (when sentimentalism is thought to have begun). Notions of empathy, dating back to Cicero, are essential to this story on multiple levels. Abramson will explore those notions as her contribution to this project.

Colin Allen, Cognitive Science and History & Philosophy of Science. Allen works closely with biologists and psychologists who are dealing with questions about what can legitimately be inferred about the nature of animal cognition from field and laboratory data. He also works in philosophy of mind and artificial intelligence. In Moral Machines, Allen discusses empathy and its relationship to moral decision-making, focusing on robotics. He takes a critical but generally supportive look at what can be inferred from the neurosciences about the nature of social experience and understanding, including empathy. For Allen, the sciences are relevant to the humanistic concerns, and can even help us rethink some basic humanistic assumptions, but not in the simple direct fashion that is sometimes claimed.

Keith Barton, Professor, Curriculum and Instruction, School of Education, will develop instructional procedures for balancing historical empathy and ethical judgment in secondary schools and higher education, and will develop research elicitation techniques for empirically investigating students' ideas about empathy and judgment in historical contexts. Although previous research on students' understanding of historical empathy has been conducted, there has been little attention to how empathy can be made "virtuous" through considering ethical criteria, nor how this can be developed in classroom settings.

Bennett Bertenthal, Rudy Professor, Psychology and Brain Sciences. Bertenthal's work focuses on action understanding and the human mirror neuron system, especially those forms of imitation or mimicry that are unconscious, unintentional, and automatic. His research asks how behavioral mimicry and social resonance could be mediated by the mirror system. Recent neuroimaging, electrophysiological, and behavioral investigations by Bertenthal and others reveal that the observation of an action automatically facilitates its execution. These findings suggest that action observation leads to simulation of perceived actions, which places the observer in the "shoes of the other person." Bertenthal's work in neuroscience and mimicry will provide a crucial source of dialogue for work in empathy that bridges the divide between explanatory and interpretive models.

John Bodnar, Chancellor's Professor, History and Director, IU Institute for Advanced Study. A scholar of American history, the nation-state, and the commemoration of war, Bodnar will explore empathy and public memory. He observes that empathy is a relatively late addition to our moral lexicon. It is striking, he notes, that an increased interest in empathy parallels the rise of unprecedented capacities for violence. The rise of the empathic imagination is severely challenged by an explosion of global warfare, genocide, irregular conflict, and endless representations of cruelty in mass culture. Bodnar will examine empathy's fragility and Americans' failure to empathize with the vast toll of the war dead in public commemorations.

Fritz Breithaupt, Germanic Studies. The author of a recent book on empathy and fiction, Breithaupt will take up three new questions: (1) What is the effect of empathy on third-party decision-making? Suppose one must adjudicate a conflict between two parties. What is the effect of empathy on a third party when settling such a dispute? (2) To what extent is one's empathy the result of prior judgments? Does empathy condition judgment, as is often assumed, or does judgment condition empathy? (3) To what extent, if any, does empathy contribute to social cohesion and the improvement of social relations?

Richard Miller, Religious Studies and Director, Poynter Center (Project PI). Miller will compare empathy with two influential virtues in Christian ethics and culture more widely: Augustinian caritas and Kierkegaardian agape. Caritas is a benevolent disposition that can nonetheless be condescending or paternalistic. Agape is an expression of disinterested and selfless love. Empathy, as awareness of and feeling congruent with another's emotive state, is a moral attitude that gets beyond condescension and disinterestedness and connects with another on his or her own terms. That fact does not turn empathy into a virtue; other moral factors must be considered to render empathy a praiseworthy moral response.

Lisa Sideris, Religious Studies. A scholar of religion, the history of science, and environmental ethics, Sideris will carry out research into the empathetic imagination and radical otherness, especially as empathy connects with a sense of awe and wonder. Typically the idea of empathy suggests a mediation of one's emotions by another's. Empathy involves broadening one's emotional repertoire to wider horizons of difference. That idea has implications for responses to the natural world and environmental ethics. Sideris will explore these connections and authors who make them - Charles Darwin and Rachel Carson.

Aaron Stalnaker, Religious Studies and East Asian Languages and Cultures. Stalnaker will contribute to the project in a cross-cultural way, pursuing a study of empathy in the dominant strand of the Confucian tradition, focusing on Mencius, Zhu Xi, and Wang Yangming. Comparing various conceptions of empathy, sympathy, and compassion in key Confucian figures and influential Western accounts, Stalnaker hopes to shed light on both strengths and weaknesses of more familiar Western accounts and suggest areas for further inquiry into empathy.