Morality And Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and experience the feelings of others, particularly others’ suffering. Humanity’s gift of understanding complex emotions ushers in a new way of understanding ourselves and how we react to stimuli. This ultimately leads to questioning of everything, leading us to one strong notion: Does empathy guide or hinder moral action?

In one experiment, involving various bad smells, it was noted that the participants that had been exposed to a mild-stink or strong-stink smell were more severe in their moral judgements than participants exposed to no bad smell. In all four experiments, the same results were obtained, participants that felt disgust were likely to be more severe in their judgments. This paper concludes that participants who believe in their intuitions were often tricked by outside forces, such as a bad smell. Noting this phenomenon, the paper suggests that self-awareness of these outside factors can help mitigate their effect. However, they also suggest it is not wise to completely remove somatic markers. In one study, the patients were not able to incorporate feelings and sensations into their decision making; as a result, the patients were unable to come to conclusions on any simple subject matter. The paper concludes that it is ok to rely on these intuitions even if they can be easily influenced, but it also says we must be aware of factors that can distort our intuitions. By following this methodology, one can mitigate making biased decisions due to his or her

As we have all come to learn empathy is a broad and even controversial topic; having empathy may not always mean making good decisions. That is what each of the three pieces: “The Dark Side of Empathy” by Paul Bloom, “What Makes Us Moral” by Jeffrey Klugger, and “Why Mental Pictures Can Sway Your Moral Judgement” by Shankar Vedantam examine (2015, 2007, 2012). All three sources are effective in conveying their message about morals and empathy, however varying rhetoric methods are employed by each piece.

However, by observing one’s actions, it can aid in revealing a person’s identity. We must look at the heart of these actions and see the emotions behind them. Does empathy play a role in these actions, or is it lacking? Simply by contemplating a person’s actions one can see that there is one obvious truth. At the core of all actions and people, the amount of empathy one has differentiates between good and evil.

208). As stated within the textbook, “The seven basic emotions consist of: Disgust, Anger, Fear, Sadness, Contempt, Surprise as well as Joy” (Juang & Matsumoto, Chapter 8, pg. 215). In addition, “Possible Trigger Events, Behavior as well as scanning are part of the Model of Emotion” (Juang & Matsumoto, Chapter 8, pg. 208). When it comes to emotions, there are all sorts of emotions individuals experience based on certain events that are happening and how they all react differently to those events. My personal heartbreaking experience will explain the three parts of model of emotions. On October 29th, 2015, I went in for an Anatomy scan to see my baby. However, as the lady was doing the ultrasound she told me that my baby boy passed away. My emotions were sadness to the point I was shedding tears. The event of finding out that my baby inside me passed away triggered the emotions of sadness. When it comes to scanning, in my opinion as soon as the ultrasound lady told me that my baby boy passed away I was trying to piece together is this really happening and trying to come up with any possible solutions on why this happened, however; I nor the Doctor know why my baby passed away. In my opinion that would be an example of scanning. As for behavior, my reactions after I found out are that I didn’t want to leave the bed. I just wanted to stay in the bed and cry. I didn’t really want to eat but I had too. This would be an example of behavior that was triggered by this heartbreaking event. I am still heartbroken about losing my baby for which I have to deliver him on November 1st at the hospital, however; I am trying to cope with loving family and friends by my side

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison left me with many emotions, especially of uncertainty. After reading the collective of essays, I felt as if I needed to revaluate my life. My perspective of empathy has always been to sympathize with the other individual. I always tried to put myself in that person’s “shoes”. Leslie Jamison opened up a whole new world.

Haidt, J. (2003). The moral emotions. Handbook of affective sciences, 11, 852-870. Retrieved March 18, 2017 from http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/articles/alternate_versions/haidt.2003.the-moral-emotions.pub025-as-html.html

Even though he is an opponent of empathy, Paul Bloom makes an important observation about the inherent bias that empathy fosters. He states that empathy influences an individual to act more empathetic towards those who exhibit

When an individual is proposed with a moral dilemma they will often seek the advice of others rather than acting solely upon their immediate cultural, familial, and cognitive predispositions; suggesting that judgments are also made about the moral judgments of others (Rest, Cooper, Coder, Masanz & Anderson, 1974).

While Tolhurst and Shafer-Landau raise some legitimate concerns regarding the studies, they seem to boil down to a simple dilemma. We have to ask whether these studies suggest an inherent defect in our ability to form moral intuitions or whether they merely show that, under special conditions, our moral intuitions can be “tricked” by clever experimenters.

Alessandra BlancoDr. Zenia KishTHINK 50-Empathy13 December 2016Responding to Bloom: Connecting Empathy and Compassion from a Biological StandpointAccording to Paul Bloom, empathy and compassion are two separate concepts. Empathy,he claims, is a destructive emotion. “Feel[ing] what your friend feels, to experience, as much asyou can, the terrible sorrow and pain” is an unnecessary component of social good. FromBloom’s standpoint, empathy is composed of an emotional and cognitive component.

Fayard, J. V., Roberts, B. W., Robins, R. W., & Watson, D. (2012). Uncovering the Affective

Furthermore, it is proven that morals have an emotional basis, as recent studies in neuroscience and psychology have shown. In Moral Obligations, Jesse J. Prinz draws on some of these studies, in which researchers would measure brain activity while asking subjects to participate in various activities such as deliberating on moral predicaments, deciding whether something is morally right or wrong, showing them morally significant pictures, etc (Greene et al. 2001; King et al. 2006; Moll et al. 2002). Most studies tend to demonstrate that areas in the brain associated with emotion are the most involved in making a moral judgment concluding that emotions are a fundamental part of moral judgment in general (Prinz 2007, 272). It has also been shown that we are less likely to make wrong moral judgments when our negative emotions are reduced. In one study, “watching a comedy routine dramatically reduces the judgment that it is wrong to kill one person in order to save five” (DeSteno and Valdesolo 2006). Because there is such a clear connection between moral judgments and the emotional state we make them in, it follows that studying cognitive science is the answer to questions about whether morals are response-dependent or are response-independent.

Morality has been a term of debate for several years by intellectuals who have not come to the final conclusion of its definition. According to Damon (5), morality is an existing, multifaceted construct that may not be pinned down by any single definitional criteria which is flexible. The moral character has long been associated with happiness which is that state of having achieved one's desires although there are some disconnections. Several theories have been forwarded in connection to morality and happiness as far as the society is concerned. In this argumentative paper we shall give detailed analysis of morality and happiness and whether or not moral character is a requirement to happiness.

Chapter 2 is centered on the early attempts to identify the brain’s components of emotions. Key researchers that are discussed are a Cornell neuroanatomist, James Papez, and aforementioned physician and neuroscientist Paul MacLean, who worked at Yale and the National Institutes of Mental Health. Together, this pair of researchers conducted seminal medial temporal lobe lesion experiments. The resulting idea was that the emotional brain is composed of a set of interconnected structures in the core of the brain. MacLean dubbed these structures as the “limbic system”. The function of the limbic system and it relationship to emotion was widely debated by many researchers.