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In general, empathy may be regarded as a persons ability to feel and understand another individuals experience, reality, and perspective from within his frame of reference. At the same time, according to Teófilo et al. (2018), there are multiple perspectives on the concept of empathy that exist in modern scientific literature. Thus, initially regarded as an individual capacity to feel another persons private world, empathy was divided into four major components, including emotive, moral, cognitive, and behavioral empathy (Teófilo et al., 2018). Emotive empathy is ones subjective ability to perceive others intrinsic feelings and psychological states. Moral empathy refers to the altruism-related strong inner force that motivates people to practice empathy. In turn, cognitive empathy presupposes the intellectual ability to identify and understand the feelings and perspectives of another person from an objective standpoint (Teófilo et al., 2018, p. 2). Finally, behavioral empathy is an individuals communicative response used for the transmission of anothers perspective.
At the same time, empathy differs from related concepts, including sympathy, altruism, and compassion. Sympathy presupposes a feeling of concern and care accompanied by a desire to observe improvements, however, it is based neither on emotions nor on knowledge. Compassion refers to a persons intention to share others suffering to lessen them. Finally, altruism is a simple desire to help others while understanding may be absent. In turn. empathy may serve as a virtue that catalyzes sympathy, altruism, and compassion. For instance, when a person understands another individuals sadness, he may have an intention to care, share this emotion, and selflessly help at the same time.
Although empathy cannot be accurately measured and its actual source remains unknown, it is traditionally associated with the activation of the brains mirror neuron systems also responsible for emotion-sharing abilities and intuition related to others feelings, thoughts, and intentions. From early childhood, people interact with others learning to perceive their emotional state and come to spontaneously mirror or mimic the emotional response that they would expect to see from others in a given condition or context (Council of Europe, n.d., para. 7). All in all, empathetic people possess several distinguishing characteristics they are effective observers curious about strangers and active listeners who aim to identify common traits they have with others to understand them and challenge prejudices. They constantly develop their creativity and imagination in order to try on other peoples lives to justify their decisions and actions. Moreover, empathetic people are frequently responsible for the creation and conduct of group activities as they have the capacity to attract others, get them involved, and initiate social change.
Empathys Contribution to Ethics
In order to evaluate empathys contribution to ethics, it is essential to define the latter. Being a moral philosophy, ethics refers to the concepts of morally right and wrong behavior. In other words, it refers to prescriptions in terms of obligations, rights, specific virtues, fairness, and benefits to society on the basis of well-founded standards. For instance, ethics presupposes the reasonable obligations that refrain people from murder, stealing, fraud, assault, or rape standards related to the virtues of loyalty, compassion, or honesty. As moral principles, ethics traditionally guides peoples behavior, decisions, and life activities. On the one hand, these principles may be determined by individual attitudes or the norms of particular social groups. On the other hand, ethical standards, especially related to human rights, are based on well-founded and consistent reasons.
Considering that ethics relate to the standards based on morality, it is possible to state that they are substantially impacted by empathy. Empathy is related to the understanding of others needs, interests, opinions, and perspectives being a determinant of moral behavior necessary for the creation of moral communities (Council of Europe, n.d.). At the same time, empathy relates not only to the understanding of others feelings but to a deep concern for individual and others well-being (Simmons, 2014). In this case, even if another person is not aware of his feelings, an empathetic person emphasizes how he should feel, being aware of them and thinking rationally on the basis of individual perceptions of well-being (Simmons, 2014). In this case, it is possible to assume that empathy and empathetic concern may be regarded as moral virtue that contributes to ethics along with others, such as honesty, loyalty, and compassion. When a person feels empathy in relation to others well-being, it motivates him to either help or not harm them (Simmons, 2014). In other words, empathy motivates people to be morally good, or ethical individuals.
As previously mentioned, empathy has several essential components considering that it is both affective and cognitive, empathy with the basic concerns of other people is necessary for caring about them. Empathy allows people to interact with others, developing an understanding of what is or is not acceptable in the social frameworks (Council of Europe, n.d., para. 13). However, it is necessary to remember that empathetic concern may be controlled in other words, people may choose to whom they feel empathy. In addition, the understanding of others feelings, emotions, and demands does not necessarily presuppose the expression of ethical behavior. In this case, empathy contributes to ethics, however, it is one of its components rather than base as there are multiple other moral virtues and factors that form fully ethical guidance.
Influence of Out-Group Status on Empathys Impact
At the same time, the empathetic approach may be substantially challenged if interaction occurs between in-group and out-group members. The in-group is formed when its members share the same identity, while all others are regarded by them as out-group individuals (Shukla, 2022). In general, as empathy may be controlled, it makes life more valuable, promoting ethical behavior, efficient interactions, and social advantages only in the case of its reasonable balance. Too much empathy may lead to negative consequences, such as emotional burnout due to fixation on other peoples problems (Shukla, 2022). However, empathy may lack when in-group and out-group members interact with each other.
Generally, sharing different identities may cause serious misunderstanding and related destructive social behavior, such as discrimination and violence on the basis of social differences. On the one hand, communication may be regarded as a potential solution as it allows the members of different in-groups to understand each others backgrounds. However, communication has a negative impact on empathy and does not contribute to its promotion. In general, this phenomenon is directly connected with a strong group identity that forces members to think that their group is distinct and dominant (Shukla, 2022). In this case, people not only have negative attitudes towards out-group individuals but possess a meta-stereotype that refers to their perception of others seeming attitude towards them. In other words, when the representatives of various in-groups interact with each other, they act in accordance with their opinion related to how their opponents see them. In this case, a meta-stereotype does not lead to empathy that presupposes the understanding of others.
All in all, an individuals out-group status influences the impact of empathy. When an in-group has a distinct identity, its members will see out-group individuals as inferior. In this case, their ability to understand others feelings and concern others well-being essential for empathy is limited. This notion is supported by multiple research that demonstrate that ingroup members feel a sense of reward and gratification when members of the outgroup receive pain (Shukla, 2022, para. 20). When people treat out-group members as they and different, they promote the increase of social distance. Thus, when multiple prejudices exist between in-groups, their interaction does not contribute to the development of empathy.
A public safety discipline in which the existence and application of empathy attract particular attention is law enforcement and the police and public safety patrolling in particular. As police work is based on interpersonal contacts, the improvement of their efficiency should be considered (Romosiou et al., 2018). According to Ta and Lande (2021), empathy is often mentioned as a key ingredient for enhancing community-police relations, especially following the publication of the Final Report of the 2015 Presidential Task Force on 21st Century Policing (para. 1). Indeed, the understanding of others community needs is essential for efficient servicing. Moreover, the improvement of the polices performance is possible if officers have relationships with community members that are based on mutual trust, respect, shared responsibility, common interests, and confidence.
However, due to the essence of the polices responsibilities, public safety officers are frequently regarded by community members as individuals with out-group status who do not understand and do not consider citizens needs. In this case, it is possible to observe the existence of different ethical standards on the basis of social groups perceptions. For instance, cooperation with police officers in order to prevent a crime should be regarded as morally and ethically right, however, in particular communities, this interaction is regarded as wrong by its members. The existence of this tendency is partially determined by the existence of prejudice between different in-groups. As for the police, Black people are regarded as more threatening in relation to public safety, continuous frisking, arrests, and shooting at unarmed Black citizens on the basis of racial stereotypes that result in officers killing as well lead to the severe confrontation of the police and Black communities that impact understanding and their interaction.
It is obvious that this situation requires an immediate response, and one of the strategies for its improvement is the transformation of officers from out-group to in-group members. For this, police officers are sometimes hired from the representatives of a community in which they will serve after training. In this case, they will be regarded as familiar individuals with the same identity who care about in-group members needs. In general, the focus of police on the improvement of relationships with community members through communication, education, and meetings is necessary, along with the provision of specific training related to public safety officers empathy. All in all, they should learn to consider peoples needs, feelings, emotions, and actions in order to concern their well-being, treat them ethically with respect and dignity, give them the right to express themselves, convey trustworthy motives, and be neutral in decision-making.
References
Council of Europe. (n.d.). Ethics and empathy. Web.
Romosiou, V., Brouzos, A., & Vassilopoulos, S. P. (2019). An integrative group intervention for the enhancement of emotional intelligence, empathy, resilience and stress management among police officers. Police Practice and Research, 20(5), 460-478. Web.
Shukla, A. (2022). How empathy fails us: In-group/out-group negativity & emotional burn-out. Cognition Today. Web.
Simmons, A. (2014). In defense of the moral significance of empathy. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 17(1), 97-111. Web.
Ta, V., & Lande, B. (2021). Empathy: What is it, exactly? Police Chief Magazine. Web.
Teófilo, T. J. S., Veras, R. F. S., Silva, V. A., Cunha, N. M., Oliveira, J. D. S., & Vasconcelos, S. C. (2019). Empathy in the nursepatient relationship in geriatric care: An integrative review. Nursing Ethics, 26(6), 1585-1600.
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