Skip to content
Carmelics
TopicsThinkersChangesContributorsLoading account…

    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

    Navigate

    • Topics
    • Search
    • Recent Changes
    • Contribute
    • How It Works
    • Glossary
    • Thinkers
    • Contributors
    • About
    • Statistics
    • Terms
    • Privacy

    Database

    Statements
    —
    Perspectives
    —
    Topics
    —

    Press ? for keyboard shortcuts

    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Proper empathy can be understood broadly to include vicarious sharing of non-affective states such as beliefs and desires, not only affective states.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Empathy is constitutively tied to affective resonance: without felt experience, what occurs is simulation or inference, not empathy proper.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Phenomenologists like Husserl and Stein define empathy (Einfühlung) as the direct apprehension of another's lived experience, which is inherently affective.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.Extending empathy to beliefs and desires dissolves its conceptual distinctiveness, collapsing it into the broader category of mindreading or perspective-taking.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Adam Smith's concept of 'sympathy' in The Theory of Moral Sentiments is explicitly grounded in imagining oneself in another's situation, not vicarious belief-sharing.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Recruiting Smith as support for a broad, non-affective conception of empathy misreads a thinker who consistently anchors the concept in passions and sentiments.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.Historical precedent cannot establish conceptual adequacy: even if Smith used a broad conception, this does not show that conception correctly tracks what empathy is.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Some authors, especially those influenced by the epistemic conception of empathy, extend empathy beyond affective reenactment.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Adam Smith already exemplified a broad understanding of empathy that encompasses non-affective states.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Next step

    Based on where you are in your exploration

    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.