Digital Commons Network^™

The Role Of Empathy In Moral Inquiry, William Gray Kidder

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In this dissertation, I defend the view that, despite empathy’s susceptibility to problematic biases, we can and should cultivate empathy to aid our understanding of our own values and the values of others. I argue that empathy allows us to critically examine and potentially revise our values by considering concrete moral problems and our own moral views from the perspective of another person. Appropriately calibrated empathy helps us achieve a critical distance from our own moral perspective and is thus tied to impartiality in moral inquiry. In defending this role for empathy in moral inquiry, I draw on empirical work …