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Empathy as the Opposite of Egocentrism: Why the Simulation Theory and the Direct Perception Theory of Empathy Fail

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Abstract

This paper presents a new, third-personal account of empathy that characterizes empathy as being sensitive to others’ concerns as opposed to remaining stuck in one’s egocentric perspective on the world. The paper also demonstrates why this account is preferable to its two main rivals, namely the simulation theory of empathy, and the direct perception theory of empathy.

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Notes

  1. Also Plantinga (2009).

  2. Other defenders of the participant view include: Smith (1995), Grodal (1997), Vaage (2010), Coplan (2004), and Eder (2008).

  3. For the debate about the direct perception theory as such see, e.g., Jacob (2011), Lavelle (2012), Gallagher (2012b, 2015), Newen et al. (2015), Spaulding (2015, 2017). For a discussion of phenomenological theories of empathy with regard to film see e.g., Vaage (2006), Schmetkamp (2017a, b), and D’Aloia (2012).

  4. There seem to be two reasons why Gallagher refrains from tying empathy to the direct perception theory: (1) Gallagher leans toward a conception of empathy as something that is more than standard mindreading, whereas the direct perception theory is a theory about standard mindreading; (2) Gallagher wants to avoid limiting empathy to the face-to-face encounter. I will return to the latter problem of the direct perception theory below. For a more recent characterization of empathy by Gallagher with regard to acting see (Gallagher and Gallagher 2019).

  5. In Fodor’s version of the theory-theory, for example, the knowledge and principles that we use to read other minds clearly includes our knowledge about “people whose psychology [we] know intimately: [our] closest friends, say, or the spouse of [our] bosom” (1987, p. 3). Fodor also stresses that what is relevant to his approach to mindreading is not the content of such exemplary truisms as “the burnt child fears the fire” but the “‘deductive structure’ that is so characteristic of explanation in real science” (1987, pp. 6–7).

  6. To be correct, Scheler (2008, p. 20) limits this congruent feeling element to “feelingly grasping the quality of the foreign feeling” (my translation). I don’t think too much hinges on this refinement, however, because Scheler’s account of empathy differs from my account irrespective of this element.

  7. I will elaborate on the appraisal theory of emotions in the last section of the paper.

  8. In line with Ortony et al. (1988) I reject the view that my outrage in such a case is a simulated response because for ordinary first-personal outrage, it is irrelevant whether the victim of an action that violates one of my normative principles is me or someone else. Likewise, I claim that it is irrelevant for ordinary first-personal disgust whether it is my action that violates one of my preferences in taste or someone else’s action. Hence it is a mistake to believe that my disgust at seeing another person eat a worm relies on putting myself in the other’s shoes. Moreover, I believe that there are good arguments for the view that other supposedly simulatory responses – such as vicarious embarrassment or even so-called empathy for pain – are actually sympathetic responses. For empirical evidence that supports the latter claim and questions large parts of previous neuroscientific studies on empathy for pain and empathy in general, see, e.g.: Iannetti et al (2013), Hu and Iannetti (2016), and Krishnan et al (2016). For a response to this criticism by leading empathy researchers, see, e.g.: Zaki et al. (2016) or De Vignemont and Jacob (2016). These are crucial elements for the defense of my theory, which, for reasons of space, I cannot elaborate here.

  9. One might object that I shouldn’t speak of an allocentric perspective if I do not mean by that the adoption of another person’s point of view. But I have deliberately chosen to stick with this metaphor because I want to stay as close as possible to our ordinary speech. My hope is that in this way readers will find it easier to consult their own intuitions about what we really mean by this expression in the relevant contexts.

  10. I will frequently switch between real world examples, “intrafictional” examples, and examples involving the film spectator because I believe that the patterns of empathizing and sympathizing are more or less analogical in all these cases. Of course, this is not to say that on a macro level there are great differences between our engagement with reality and film, because unlike in unmediated reality our empathy and sympathy are strongly influenced by the cinematic narration when we are watching a film. In addition, films can give us quick access to the biographies, traits and preferences of people who would be total strangers to us in the real world.

  11. The former is visibly the case in the scene where the mother comes to accept that she will not overcome her cancer.

  12. Arguably one of the reasons why we do this so readily in the cinema is because, unlike in reality, the fictional states of affairs cannot affect our goals, or at least only to a very limited degree. Contrast this with a case where an opponent beats me in a competition and where my feeling upset about this fact would make it considerably more difficult for me to focus my attention on what this fact means to him.

  13. For an introduction to the philosophy of well-being, see Crisp (2017). For a more detailed overview, see, e.g., Sumner (1996).

  14. I am here using the definition of empathy as something that we do in addition to mindreading, as has been proposed by De Vignemont and Jacob (2012), in part as a concession to the phenomenological criticism of the simulation theory of mindreading. I present my own arguments against the simulation theory of mindreading in my upcoming dissertation.

  15. For an alternative account of the relationship between empathy and sympathy that avoids the commitment to say that the father is not empathizing with his son, see Giovannelli (2009).

  16. Note that this would not be a case of schadenfreude as I define it below, but an ordinary self-oriented response.

  17. For this widely accepted definition of sympathetic and antipathetic emotions, see, e.g., Ortony et al. (1988).

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  1. Department of Film Studies, University of Zurich, Affolternstrasse 56, 8050, Zurich, Switzerland

    Robert Blanchet

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Blanchet, R. Empathy as the Opposite of Egocentrism: Why the Simulation Theory and the Direct Perception Theory of Empathy Fail. Topoi 39, 751–759 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-018-09630-5

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