Institutionalized empathy

Abstract

ABSTRACT Questions about the social and moral importance of empathy have garnered much debate in recent years. On the one hand, critics of empathy have pointed out its susceptibility to morally troubling biases and group preferences. On the other hand, proponents of empathy maintain that empathy is a motivated response that can be trained and developed to avoid these so-called empathic failures. Yet, both sides focus on the individual psychological factors that contribute to empathy’s success or failure in a range of cases, thereby overlooking the importance of social contexts and institutions in facilitating or inhibiting empathy. The aim of this paper is thus to offer an account of the role that institutionally structured social contexts can and should play in promoting empathy across group divides and helping to overcome empathy’s morally troubling tendency to fail in cases where outgroup members are concerned.