Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ought to safeguard the rights of others in what we do and
what we leave undone.
The categorical imperative is emblematic of empathy.
Kant uses this maxim to underpin duty ethics (so-called
deontology) with empathetic scrutiny. However, empa-
thy is not the exclusive domain of duty ethics. In
consequentialism, also known as teleological ethics, em-
pathy is one of the palliative approaches to deal with the
problem of ''ends justifying the means.'' Other philoso-
phers also incorporated the empathic viewpoint into
their frameworks. In fact, Mill's utilitarianism axiom of
''greatest good for the greatest number of people'' is
moderated by his ''harm principle,'' which, at its heart, is
empathetic. That is, even though an act can be good for
the majority, it may still be unethical if it causes undue
harm to even one person. Empathy also comes into play
in contractarianism, as articulated by Hobbes' social
contract theory. For example, John Rawls has moderated
the social contract with the ''veil of ignorance'' as a way to
consider the perspective of the weakest, one might say
''most disenfranchised,'' members of society. Finally, the
rationalist frameworks incorporate empathy into all
ethical decisions when they ask the guiding question of
''what is going on here?'' In other words, what benefit or
harm, based on reason, can I expect from actions brought
about by the decision I am about to make? One calculus
of this harm or benefit is to be empathetic to all others,
particularly the weakest members of society, those with
little or no ''voice.''
The word ''empathy'' has an interesting beginning. It
originally comes from the German word
einf¨hlung,
which means the ability to project oneself into a work of
art, like a painting. Psychologists at the beginning of the
1900s searched for a word that meant the projection of
oneself into another person, and chose the German word,
translated into English as ''empathy.'' The concept itself
was known, such as the Native Americans' admonition to
walk in another's moccasins, but it needed a construc-
tion. The earlier meaning of empathy was thus the ability
to project oneself into another person, to imitate the
emotions of that person by physical actions. For example,
watching someone prick a finger would result in a visible
winching on the part of the observer because the observer
would know how it feels.
From that notion of empathy, it was natural to move to
more cognitive role taking, imagining the other person's
thoughts and motives. From here, empathy began to be
thought of as the response that a person has for another's
situation. Psychologists and educators, especially Jean
Piaget,
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began to believe that empathy develops
throughout childhood, beginning with the child's first
notion of others who might be suffering personal stress.
The child's growing cognitive sense eventually allows him
or her to experience the stress in others. Because people
are social animals, this understanding of the stress in
others, according to the psychologists, eventually leads to
true compassion for others.
A problem with this notion of empathy development
is that some experiments have shown that the state of
mind of a person is very important in that person's ability
to empathize. Apparently, small gifts or compliments
significantly increase the likelihood that a person will
show empathy toward third parties. A person in a good
mood tends to be more understanding of others. If this is
true, then empathy is (at least partly) independent of the
object of the empathy, and empathy becomes a charac-
teristic of the individual.
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Charles Morris defines empathy as:
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The arousal of an emotion in an observer that is
a vicarious response to the other person's situation
.
Empathy depends not only on one's ability to identify
someone else's emotions but also on one's capacity to put
oneself in the other person' place and to experience an
appropriate emotional response. Just as sensitivity to
non-verbal cues increases with age, so does empathy:
The cognitive and perceptual abilities required for
empathy develop on as a child matures.
Such definitions of empathy seem to be widely accepted
in the moral psychology field. But there are some serious
problems with such a definition.
First, we have no way of knowing if the emotion
triggered in the observer is an accurate representation of
the stress in the subject. We presume that a pin prick
would be felt in a similar way because we have had this
done to us and we know what it feels like. But what about
the stress caused by a broken promise? How can an ob-
server know that he or she is on the same wavelength as
the subject when the stress is emotional?
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If a subject says that she is sad, the observer would
know what it is like to be sad, and would share in the
sadness; that is, the observer would empathize with the
subject's sadness and be able to tell the subject what is
being felt. But is the observer really feeling what the
subject is feeling? There is no way to define or measure
''sadness,'' and thus there is no way to prove that the
observer is actually feeling the same sadness that the
subject is feeling.
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An existentialist and empiricist might
say that this is true for everything, even physical realities,
but that is beyond the scope of this discussion.
The second problem relates to nonhuman animals.
Psychologists have studied empathy exclusively as
a human-human interaction, and yet many nonhuman
animals can exhibit empathy. Witness the actions of a dog
when its master is sick. You can read the caring and
sympathy and hopefulness in the dog's eyes.
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Since
sentience and pain management are important to bio-
medical engineering, these uncertainties are no small
matter.
