Empathic representation

Abstract

In empathic representation, experiences represent others’ experiences as the same as themselves. Feeling sad in empathizing with your friend represents your friend as feeling sad. The unusual role of identity in determining representational content explains how empathy helps us know what others’ experiences are like. Empathic representation is a counterexample to global externalism about content, as Twin Earth cases reveal. Applying it to moral feelings lets naturalistic realists in metaethics solve Moral Twin Earth problems and uphold the universality of morality.