Problemas no uso de empatia em investigações sobre o comportamento moral

Abstract

The past few years have seen a great deal of conceptual and empirical research on empathy, in addition to a growing public interest in the topic. In this context, the academic and public spheres often use empathy and morality interchangeably. In this article, it will be argued that there is a relationship between both, but with different levels of overlap. The problem lies in the contemporary breadth of the concept of empathy and its consequent polysemy. In the presented argument, it will be relevant to distinguish different characteristics of emotional attachment, especially, emotional resonance, empathic concern, and perspective-taking. The conceptual distinction will follow an empirical-materialist line: different embodied phenomena need specific conceptual definitions. After all, each of these psychobiological processes influences normative judgments in a particular way that incurs different forms of social behavior. The plurality of discoveries in cognitive sciences will illustrate the complex and ambiguous relationship regarding the definition of empathy. The central point to understand this relationship will be the defense of greater conceptual precision about the phenomena of emotional attachment associated with morality.