Abstract
How can democracies promote full consideration of all relevant interests in political decision-making? Is there a role for empathy, especially where there are obstacles to direct inclusion of relevant groups, as for example in the case of future generations and citizens of other countries? Critics of existing uses of empathy in political theory press that limits to our capacity to empathise can lead to bias and partiality. I argue instead for a more nuanced ‘holistic’ approach to the use of empathy into democratic design. The approach recommends, first, that we be sensitive to the potential consequences of catalysing empathy in specific decision-making contexts, rather than making general prescriptions. Second, it asks us to consider how different methods of empathic induction generate insight and motivation of different strength and degrees of generality. Third, the approach proposes not only that empathy be introduced into existing institutions and designs, but that we aim through democratic design to bring patterns of power into closer alignment with naturally occurring patterns of empathy. Fourth, the approach recommends taking a pragmatic view of which interventions might be most useful in any particular institutional context.
The Problem of Democratic Inclusivity
It is a feature of representative democracies that political representatives tend to prioritise the interests of those on whose votes they depend. Yet such prioritisation commonly leads to neglect of other groups, to an extent not justifiable by legitimate division of political responsibility or other moral considerations. These groups frequently include future generations, persistent minorities and citizens of other countries in need of international assistance. The consequences of this neglect are evident in many contemporary global and social issues, such as climate change, the persistence of poverty, structural racism, vaccine nationalism and the frequently hostile treatment of refugees.
One way to address political neglect is to redistribute power, such that members of neglected groups become full participants in democratic decision-making (Lafont, 2020: 33) – the ideal of ‘democratic inclusion’ (Young, 2002: 23). Democratic inclusion is often the best remedy to neglect, both because group members are normally best placed epistemically and motivationally to represent their own interests, and because inclusion may be seen as valuable in itself. But it isn’t always possible to include neglected groups. Future generations do not yet exist. And there are formidable obstacles to including foreign nationals in political decision-making (Goodin, 2003), both practical and justificatory. 1 Even in the case of disempowered minorities within a state, interim steps are sometimes needed to pave the way towards the longer-term goal of full participation. Moreover, participation doesn’t guarantee that one’s view or interests will be properly taken into account: one can nominally participate without being genuinely empowered to shape decisions, remaining in Young’s (2002: 55) terms, ‘internally excluded’.
The present article asks, where direct inclusion of neglected groups is either not possible, or not sufficient, can empathy help to ensure that their interests are considered both more fully and more accurately in political choices? The ideal which we are aiming at is what we might call ‘democratic inclusivity’ (where inclusivity refers to interests, not – like inclusion – to people), akin to what Scudder (2020b: 504) calls ‘fair consideration’ of interests. 2 Such an ideal requires that the interests of all groups are given due full and equal consideration when deciding what to do, even if subsequent to such deliberation and taking into account practical and ethical considerations, a reasoned decision to prioritise a particular group or groups is eventually made. 3
Empathy has appeared to be a promising candidate for promoting democratic inclusivity, for two reasons. First, it offers epistemic benefits in the form of improved insight into the experience and interests of those for whom empathy is felt. Second, it is capable of motivating decision-makers to give full consideration to the interests of those with whom they empathise. Thanks to these apparent benefits, recent years have seen a proliferation of popular interest in the potential of empathy to provide answers to the social, global and intergenerational challenges that we now face (Calloway-Thomas, 2010; De Waal, 2010; Givens, 2022; Krznaric, 2015; Patnaik and Mortensen, 2009; Rifkin, 2009; Trout, 2010). Yet empathy has also faced a backlash from those who argue that it is too weak and too partial to serve a useful role in politics. The present article speaks of this standoff. While the all-or-nothing framing sets up a compelling opposition between proponents of empathic approaches and their critics, I argue that in reality it disguises a more nuanced truth about the potential usefulness of empathy. We should instead adopt a case-by-case approach, asking not
The article proceeds as follows. The following section gives a brief overview of how empathy has been used by political theorists. The section titled ‘What is Empathy?’ clarifies what is meant by empathy and distinguishes it from two related concepts. The section on ‘The Limits to Empathy Challenge’ discusses the objection that empathy is too weak and too partial to serve as a tool to promote democratic inclusivity. Four subsequent sections, ‘Use in, and Sensitivity to, Different Institutional Contexts’, ‘Use the Most Effective Methods for Harnessing Empathy’, ‘Match Power to GEMI’, and ‘The Importance of Pragmatism’, point to new ways of using empathy in democratic design. In so doing, they aim to develop a more holistic approach that addresses some of the concerns pressed by critics. The final section concludes.
Empathy in Political Theory
The growth of popular interest in empathy has been matched by increased attention to empathy among political theorists. Democratic inclusivity is often in the background of their proposals, but frequently sits alongside other democratic desiderata, such as avoiding political polarisation. The emphasis on epistemic versus motivational benefits varies. Nussbaum, for example, focuses more on motivational benefits, whereas Krause, Morrell and Goodin highlight the epistemic benefits of empathy in addition to motivational benefits. Different theorists use different terminology, referring variously, in addition to ‘empathy’, ‘sympathy’, ‘compassion’ and ‘deliberation within’. As they are used by their authors, these terms all refer to concepts that, elsewhere, have been described as various forms of empathy (see the section on ‘What is Empathy?’). I use the authors’ preferred terms in the summary of individual views below and then revert to ‘empathy’ in the remainder of the article.
Nussbaum (2013) argues that ‘compassion’ is necessary in order to support the institutions associated with a liberal state. Unless the background citizenry experience some degree of compassion for each other, rights and institutional protections will not over time be able to sustain popular support. Politicians ought therefore to promote compassion through speeches and the arts, including media such as books, poetry, photography and film (‘tragic spectatorship’). Rorty (1998) argues that what he calls ‘sympathy’, not rationality, provides the foundation upon which people are motivated by human rights. If we are to build a culture in which people treat each other with respect and dignity across national, ethnic, social and gender divides, then we must do so on the basis of sympathy rather than reason.
Krause (2008) and Morrell (2010) focus on the importance of empathy for effective deliberation, emphasising the epistemic benefits of empathy alongside the motivational benefits. Krause argues that democratic legitimacy requires that decisions be made impartially, and that – contrary to a common view – impartiality requires a sympathetic understanding of others’ emotional experience. Likewise, Morrell argues that empathy is necessary for inclusive deliberation: ‘Without empathizing citizens, deliberative democracy will likely be no more than a talkative form of aggregative democracy’ (Morrell, 2010: 129). Goodin (2003: 180) argues that interpersonal deliberation often sidelines the interests of absent groups such as future generations. To address this problem, he proposes that interpersonal deliberation should be complemented by intrapersonal empathic reflection, or what he calls ‘deliberation within’ – the act of ‘imagining yourself into the place of the other’.
Each of these authors offers their own precise characterisation of empathy. Likewise, each has a different take on the extent to which background institutions – in the context of which empathic induction is recommended – are taken to be based on existing institutions, or a more deliberative set-up. What they share is the idea that (some form of) empathy ought to be fostered among citizens, either in their role as reflective voters and/or as part of a more fully deliberative conception of democracy. The inductive methods vary: methods include arts-based approaches (Nussbaum, Goodin, Krause, Rorty), educational innovations (Goodin, Krause), internal reflection (Goodin), news media (Krause, Rorty) and interpersonal deliberative discussion (Morrell, Krause). But the ambition in all cases is roughly the same: to gain improved epistemic insight and/or generate stronger motivation to take the interests of others into account in decision-making.
What Is Empathy?
Given the plurality of conceptions of empathy in the literature, it will be helpful to clarify what is meant by empathy in the present article. Scudder (2020a: 53) distinguishes between ‘empathy-as-process’ and ‘empathy-as-outcome’. Empathy-as-process refers to the act of imagining someone else’s perspective. Empathy-as-outcome refers to both ‘cognitive empathy’ – understanding another’s emotional or mental state, and ‘affective empathy’ – having an emotional response to another’s emotional state.
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The distinction between affective and cognitive empathy is a central one in empathy research, albeit different authors don’t always characterise it in exactly the same way.
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For example, I understand affective empathy herein in terms of having an
How do imaginative perspective-taking, cognitive empathy and affective empathy causally relate to each other? It seems clear that imaginative perspective-taking can induce both cognitive and affective empathy (Batson, 1991; Davis, 1994). For this reason, perspective-taking is often used by psychologists to induce empathy in experimental settings. At the same time, perspective-taking can fail to induce empathy when barriers such as dislike get in the way – which forms the basis of the limits to empathy challenge discussed in the section on ‘The Limits to Empathy Challenge’. Likewise, while cognitive empathy can lead to affective empathy, it is far from guaranteed to do so, as demonstrated by the sadist who uses the insights of cognitive empathy to understand precisely how to further their victim’s emotional torment (Nussbaum, 2013: 147). Some authors see the causal relationship between cognitive and affective empathy not as a one-way process, but as an ongoing interaction between the two. Goodin (2003: 181), for example, writes that ‘film (and art more generally) [. . .] come[s] packed with more emotional punch and engage[s] our imagination in more effective ways than do historical narratives or reflective essays of a less stylized sort’.
In the present article, I use the term empathy to refer to empathy-as-outcome (cognitive and affective empathy) rather than empathy-as-process (imaginative perspective-taking). Both cognitive and affective empathy potentially make important contributions to democratic inclusivity, by virtue of the insight and motivation that they generate. In theory, one might try to separate out the different contributions of affective and cognitive empathy in the arguments that follow, and identify potential benefits and risks associated with each in different contexts. I have, however, chosen not to pursue that level of granularity herein, treating both affective and cognitive empathy together under the overall heading ‘empathy’, except in specific contexts where there are clear reasons to think that the risks and benefits associated with each will come apart. This is both to avoid further complicating the discussion, and because in most salient cases of political neglect, both motivation and understanding are lacking and the balance of risks and benefits associated with cognitive and affective empathy appears largely to line up.
How should empathy be distinguished from related concepts such as compassion and democratic listening? The term ‘compassion’ is used in different ways by different authors. Most notably, Nussbaum (2013: 142) writes that compassion is ‘a painful emotion directed at the serious suffering of another creature or creatures’, in which the suffering is understood to be important and nontrivial, the predicament unchosen and the thought that the suffering person is ‘among the important parts of the life of the person who feels the emotion’ (Nussbaum, 2013: 144). On this understanding of compassion, it is not so much opposed to empathy (in the sense used herein); rather, it is a way of referring to a particular subset of cases of affective empathy, those in which Nussbaum’s three conditions are met. (Nussbaum does treat compassion as opposed to what she calls ‘empathy’, but this is because by ‘empathy’ she means cognitive empathy and not affective empathy.)
Democratic listening (e.g. Bickford, 1996; Dobson, 2014; Scudder, 2020a) goes beyond just hearing what someone says. As Scudder (2020a: 86) writes, it ‘amounts to a recognition on the part of listeners that the voice of the speaker is relevant to their own thinking and behavior’ and has three components: the auditory episode – the content that is received; the perauditory episode – the internal changes that are brought about through listening; and the ilauditory episode – the performative act of listening and its role in the external world. Empathy (both cognitive and affective) can be a result of democratic listening, and specifically of the perauditory listening episode.
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But empathy is not the only outcome of democratic listening: for example, listening can bring about changes in belief through reason-based cognitive routes, by catalysing reflection based on the arguments of others. Crucially, democratic listening can allow for meaningful deliberation through recognition of difference even where the difference is too great for empathy to bridge (Scudder, 2020a: 157–172). And regardless of outcome, the ilauditory element of listening can grant ‘a bid for democratic autonomy or democratic self-rule’ (Scudder, 2020a: 109) to those who are heard. I agree with Scudder that listening can be democratically valuable for these reasons, independently of its ability to generate empathy. But,
The Limits to Empathy Challenge
Empathy-based approaches to democratic inclusivity have faced various objections. Of these, the most widely posed is that, while empathy can be fostered and increased beyond existing levels, it will always remain limited. People just aren’t good at empathising across difference. As such, an increased emphasis on empathy will either fail or, worse, lead to biased decision-making (Bloom, 2016; Pinker, 2012: 692–713; Prinz, 2011: 227; Scudder, 2020a: 60–62; Srinivasan, 2022: 107–108). This objection can be focussed either on cognitive empathy, affective empathy, or both.
In the case of cognitive empathy, Scudder (2020a: 60–62) argues that even when people sincerely try to empathise with others, their ability to do so is limited by what psychologists Van Boven and Loewenstein (2005) call the ‘empathy gap’. The empathy gap refers to the fact that people tend to imagine the other’s perspective in the light of their own context, experience, thoughts and emotions. In so doing, they do not accurately grasp the perspective of the other, such that the potential epistemic benefits of empathy are poorly realised. As Srinivasan (2022) writes: There are significant psychic limits to men’s ability to empathise with the feelings of degradation and threat that women experience when they are catcalled or objectified, to white people’s ability to empathise with the horror of being the object of racialized treatment, and to rich people’s ability to empathise with the feelings of worthlessness and desperation bred by economic precarity (p. 108).
Prinz and Bloom, conversely, take issue with the affective form of empathy. Both point to ways in which empathically grounded motivation can lead people to prioritise the interests of those for whom they experience empathy, even at the expense of doing what is right. Bloom (2016: 86), for example, notes an experiment by Batson et al. (1995), in which subjects chose to prioritise a terminally ill child for support subsequent to an empathic engagement involving that particular child, even though several other children had been waiting longer for support, had more pressing needs and had a shorter life expectancy. Likewise, Prinz (2011: 214) argues that empathy serves neither as ‘a component, a necessary cause, a reliable epistemic guide, a foundation for justification, or the motivating force behind our moral judgments’. 7 Indeed, in extreme cases Bloom (2016: 177–212) argues that affective empathy can not only fuel biased helping behaviour in favour of the former, but can also lead to active attempts to harm the latter.
Those who recommend an empathic approach do not entirely overlook the worry about bias. Hume (1978 [1739]) himself noted the biased nature of empathy but thought that we are pushed towards a general perspective, a ‘common point of view’, by the expectation of moral concurrence from our audience, who do not share our particular perspective (Sayre-McCord, 1994). Bai (2020: 125–128), taking inspiration from Confucian philosophy, proposes that the narrowness of empathy can be overcome by using familial relations ‘as a stepping-stone for our moral cultivation and expansion’. Nussbaum (2013: 157) notes the ‘narrowness of compassion’, its tendency to be constrained by group animosity, hatred and disgust, and the fact that it is ‘wavering and inconstant, often diminishing over time and thus failing to sustain helping efforts required to address chronic problems’. For this reason, Nussbaum (2013: 157) recommends that an empathic approach should be paired with an emphasis on generalising moral principle, such that the two strengthen and support each other – ‘a continual, and watchful, dialogue between vivid imagining and impartial principle’. Others have emphasised the need to pair empathy with reason-based deliberation in order to help address worries about limits to empathy and foster impartiality (Krause, 2008: 174). I endorse such a plurality of motivational mechanisms and a diversity of approaches to epistemic insight (in the section ‘Match Power to GEMI’ below). But given that a large part of the initial motivation for exploring the potential of empathy in the first place was a worry about the unreliability of our capacity for impartial moral reasoning (Krause, 2008: 146–151), we should be wary of relying too heavily on such a faculty to neutralise the risk of empathic bias.
Still, even if deliberation and moral reason can combine with empathy to partly stabilise its contribution, there remains an underlying disagreement about how optimistic or pessimistic to be about the impact of empathy’s apparent limits. There is good experimental evidence for the empathy-inhibiting effects of dislike or antipathy (Batson et al., 2007), but a growing body of research casts doubt on other supposed limits to empathy (e.g. Stürmer et al., 2006) such as physical distance, lack of shared group membership, dissimilarity and having needs that one has not experienced oneself (Batson, 2011: 42–43 and 193–194; Batson et al., 2005). 8 Yet proponents of empathy needn’t rely on this contested evidence: I will argue that, by adopting a more nuanced approach, they can offer more robust responses than (what critics will see as) wishful thinking.
In the next four sections, I offer a number of proposals for, and observations about, how the motivational and epistemic power of empathy can be harnessed in pursuit of democratic inclusivity. The aim is twofold. First, I aim to show how worries about limits to empathy do not require us to abandon empathic approaches altogether, but do demand sensitivity to risks arising in particular contexts. Second, I aim to show how new methods, beyond those recommended by existing literature, offer a broader suite of tools for harnessing empathy’s potential. Overall, the proposals amount to an approach, which we might call a ‘holistic approach’, somewhat different from existing approaches. It situates efforts to harness empathy in the context of the broader project of democratic design, in which diverse institutional mechanisms are used to reshape structures of power and draw on a range of tools to catalyse different aspects of human psychology for social and political benefit.
Use in, and Sensitivity to, Different Institutional Contexts
The views discussed in the section ‘Empathy in Political Theory’ recommend fostering empathy among ordinary citizens, either in their role as reflective voters within existing systems, or as participants in a more ambitious deliberative model of democracy. But we should not look
There is potentially a role for empathy in democratic design whether the innovations under consideration involve tweaks to existing institutions, or a wholesale redesign from the ground up, deliberative or otherwise. Likewise, there is a role whether we are considering how to foster inclusivity in specific institutions for neglected groups in general, or whether we are focussing on one specific group, such as future generations, citizens of other states, persistent minorities or a subset of any of these groups. In the discussion that follows I do not presume any particular such context, but rather make general observations about how empathy might be deployed within a democratic design project. But we should not assume that empathy can be equally useful in all institutional contexts. While empathy is
Consider, for example, that there is an important difference between decisions about how to benefit a particular group, and decisions that involve trade-offs between more than one group. In the former case, catalysing empathy for the group in question has the potential both to generate motivation, and to improve the epistemic situation of decision-makers. Of course, we must be careful not to assume that there is no trade-off in a particular context just because the trade-off is not readily apparent. For example, we must be attuned to the possibility that there are less visible opportunity costs to investing energy and resources in the interests of a particular group. But in those cases where there really is no trade-off to be made, for example, where resources have already been allocated to a group and the question is how best to use them, the worry about bias does not appear to be operative.
Where there are trade-offs to be made, on the other hand, we ought to tread more carefully. Consider first the case in which those participating in a decision-making forum do not at the outset have any particularly strong empathic attachments to those whose interests are at stake. If empathy for the relevant groups can be induced, this has the potential to place decision-making on a surer epistemic footing, and motivate decision-makers to exercise care and give fair consideration to all interests. But the devil will be in the detail. In some cases, for example, where decision-makers differ culturally from some groups more than others (despite having no pre-existing empathic connections to any), attempts to induce empathy may be more successful for the groups that are less culturally dissimilar to the decision-makers, introducing a risk of epistemic and/or motivational imbalance. What should we do in such cases? Some theorists recommend making decisions from an empathy-free ‘impartial standpoint’ to avoid the risk of bias. Krause (2008: 3), by contrast, argues that the epistemic position of decision-makers may be so impoverished without empathic insight that an impartial standpoint becomes impossible. One plausible conclusion is that there is no general answer to be had. The balance of potential gains
Consider next decisions involving trade-offs between the groups to which the decision-makers belong, and an absent other to which they don’t belong. Some of the weightiest political decisions do involve precisely these kinds of trade-offs: decisions about the interests of present generations versus the interests of future generations; decisions about promoting national interests versus alleviating the suffering of foreign citizens; decisions about the interests of the ruling majority versus disenfranchised minorities. At least in cases where inclusion is not possible, it seems plausible that any motivation and/or epistemic insight generated by attempts to induce empathy for the absent other will provide at least some partial redress to the bias that would otherwise exist. But in other cases, particularly those involving minorities, there is a worry that attempts to induce empathy risk stalling efforts to achieve actual inclusion (which may also occur in relevant cases of the preceding two categories). As Scudder (2020a: 71) writes, ‘even successful attempts at empathy, where citizens gain an understanding of their fellow citizens’ perspectives, represent a premature [. . .] uptake that undermines the very possibility of achieving the uptake of actual voices included in political discourse’. This risk arises only when inclusion is possible, and so the objection is not targeted at cases where inclusion is not realistically possible, most notably those involving future generations and perhaps also those involving citizens of other countries (notwithstanding the ‘reliable proxies’ proposal in the section ‘Match Power to GEMI’ below). Yet even in cases where inclusion is possible, we might expect that the risk will vary by context. It occurs when decision-makers would otherwise include members of the marginalised group as full participants in the decision-making forum, but fail to do so because they believe that the insight they gain from empathy provides a sufficient alternative. By contrast, where the condition is not met – where the counterfactual is instead that decision-makers would continue with the exclusionary status quo without even the benefit of empathy to inform and motivate their decisions – the risk is not operative. And indeed, in many cases, it seems plausible that empathy could hasten the move to full inclusion rather than obstruct it. Decision-makers will not always fall prey to a dynamic of epistemic complacency: where they instead recognise the limits of their own insight, empathy can provide precisely the motivation, which would otherwise be absent, to move towards full inclusion. We must again be attentive to the specific risk factors of the context in hand and decide whether empathy should be treated as an obstacle to eventual full inclusion, or a realistic second best. How we will respond in any given case will depend on whether full inclusion is even possible, and if it is, whether empathy looks likely to act as a catalyst or an obstacle to getting there.
Finally, there are cases where representatives of all relevant groups participate in a decision-making forum, but where the risk is that some groups will dominate and ignore the interests of others. Attempts to foster empathy across divides might in such circumstances be less effective than one might hope. Nevertheless, advocates of empathy would argue that, even when partially successful, empathy can help to ensure that all groups participating are, to a greater extent than they would otherwise be, attentive to each other’s interests (Krause, 2008; Morrell, 2010). Critics, by contrast, again point to the risks. Scudder (2020a: 74) notes that empathy-induced motivation without concomitant epistemic insight, which can occur when agents try and fail accurately to imagine another’s perspective, can lead to ‘cluelessness [. . .] accompanied by a comforting sense of self-satisfaction’. This can set back productive discourse across divides, both because mistaken perspective-taking can create interpersonal friction that obstructs constructive discussion, and because a focus on empathy can restrict deliberation to commonalities in the context of which empathy is possible (Scudder, 2020a: 74–78). Scudder is right to draw our attention to these often overlooked risks. But we might make two observations in response. First, the risk seems at its most acute when we allow attempts at imaginative perspective-taking (the focus of Scudder’s concern) to displace actual listening: empathy that emerges as a natural unforced outcome of effective listening seems potentially less problematic, at least with respect to the risk of interpersonal friction, if not with respect to the risk of restricting deliberation to commonalities. Second, there are ways to mitigate the risk. For example, we might emphasise the need to be attentive to difference and to empathy’s limits, and not to neglect the need for listening-based deliberation across difference when empathy proves out of reach, even while celebrating the epistemic and motivational benefits of empathy where they do arise. Scudder (2020a: 125) argues that insisting on empathy as the sole or primary purpose of listening can hinder attempts to leverage listening for deliberation across difference, but we need not go all out for empathy to take advantage of its potential contribution to democratic inclusivity. A more cautious approach, which seeks to reap the benefits of both strategies, would be to recognise and gently encourage empathy as one possible beneficial outcome of listening, among others, where the context allows. 9
Use the Most Effective Methods for Harnessing Empathy
One feature of existing empathic approaches is that they rely on what we might think of as ‘arms length’ methods for generating empathy. Empathy is to be induced by imagining the emotional experience of another, by participating in interpersonal exchange in formal deliberative settings, by engaging with arts-based representations or by watching news media. Such methods can indeed generate empathy, but their capacity to do so is unreliable, and the empathy that they produce is unstable and has a tendency to fade over time. In order to maintain motivation and epistemic insight, topping up would sooner or later be required. Doing so risks confronting the challenge that repeated empathic induction would lead to emotional fatigue (Bloom, 2016: 137–145).
And yet there is a more effective way to generate empathy, which is underutilised by existing approaches: what we might call ‘extended immersive engagement’. Such engagement happens when a person spends a significant amount of time observing and sharing the emotional experience of another, not merely imagining it or hearing it reported. They directly witness the emotions of the object of their empathy, as experienced in the normal course of life, rather than imagining them from afar or utilising fictional stand-ins. 10 The unique characteristic of extended immersive engagement, in comparison to arms-length methods for inducing empathy, is that it requires repeated close and direct observation and understanding of another’s real-time emotional experience in response to external events over an extended period of time. For example, studies of immersive ‘study abroad’ programmes, and community-based volunteering programmes, where participants spend extended periods sharing the daily life and challenges of culturally diverse communities, show that under the right circumstances participants undergo significant learning and attitude change (Onosu, 2020).
Extended immersive engagement provides opportunities for democratic listening, which as described in the section ‘What is Empathy?’, can provide a route to empathy alongside other benefits. All listening opportunities are potentially valuable, but there are reasons to think that the kind provided by extended immersive engagement can be particularly effective. These reasons include the fact that such engagements afford opportunities to witness the emotional lives of hosts firsthand, rather than have them reported after the event; that interactions occur over an extended period of time; and that participants get to experience for themselves the context, culture and challenges that shape the perspective of their hosts. The benefits of empathy so produced are fourfold. First, the induction method is more powerful, and therefore in a stronger position to break through limits that might otherwise prevent effective generation of empathy. Second, extended immersive engagement offers insight into the experiences and interests of target communities that is both broader and deeper than that which can be gained through alternative means. Third, the empathy thus produced frequently leads to more powerful motivation, which is more likely to win out all things considered against competing motivations. 11 Fourth, both the epistemic and motivational benefits are more stable over time, so that there is less of a need for constant topping up with fresh attempts to reinduce empathy, which as noted would risk causing emotional exhaustion. But consider the following worries about using extended immersive engagement.
First, there is a worry that extended immersive engagement is realistically only likely to work where there is already some existing degree of empathy for the relevant groups. If it is unrealistic to hope that empathy can be induced for certain marginalised groups in the absence of any pre-existing empathy, even using this more effective method, then overreliance on empathy as a strategy for increasing democratic inclusivity would risk entrenching exclusion and disregard for the interests of those groups (Scudder, 2020a: 64–65). To be sure, the empathic benefits of extended immersive engagement are particularly likely to be realised when participants approach immersive experiences with a willingness to fully engage in the sharing experience and to engage in democratic listening. Moreover, when some pre-existing degree of empathic motivation for the host is present this can be a powerful catalyst, which can be strengthened by the experience and coupled with improved epistemic insight. But there is no reason to conclude that extended immersive engagement is doomed to fail when there is no pre-existing empathy, or when participants are initially sceptical. To the contrary, provided either that there is some minimal willingness to engage (even if merely out of curiosity), or that the experience is set up so that participants are not able to fully avoid engagements, evidence suggests that engagement can lead to breakthroughs in empathy even across significant difference (e.g. Bargal and Bar, 1992; Boisjoly et al., 2006; Robinson and Zalut, 2018: 29).
Second, there is a worry that the motivation and insight generated may be too narrow, too restricted to the individuals with whom the engagement occurs. This worry is not borne out by the evidence. Both experimental and anecdotal evidence suggest that those who experience empathy frequently experience altruistic motivation not only towards the direct objects of their empathy, but also towards related but potentially unknown others in similar situations (Batson, 2018: 221–223; Batson et al., 1997, 2002). Likewise, those who experience empathy for individuals are likely to have better insight into the interests not only of the specific individuals but also of the broader group to which they belong. To distinguish this generalised motivation and epistemic insight from the altruistic motivation and insight experienced for the direct objects of one’s empathy, we might introduce a new term to refer to it: ‘Generalised Empathic Motivation and Insight’ (GEMI). The extent to which any particular person will generalise from an individual experience of empathy to wider GEMI seems to vary. Nevertheless, however broad its extent, some degree of generalisation from the experience of empathy for a particular individual to GEMI for a wider set of individuals seems nearly always to occur. Importantly, this generalisation occurs as an automatic response to empathy and does not rely on the unreliable application of reason to be realised.
A related concern, however, carries more punch. Even if an extended immersive engagement does generate GEMI on behalf of a wider group, the insight gained may be less extensive, and the motivation to help the wider group may be less strongly felt, compared with the insight and motivation for the particular individuals with whom that engagement took place (Prinz, 2011: 228). 12 We ought to take this concern seriously. But it does not require that we abandon the benefits of extended immersive engagement altogether, so much so that we mitigate the associated risks. We can do so by thinking about how to structure democratic institutions such that decision-makers are not faced with trade-offs between the interests of particular individuals with whom they have undergone extended immersive engagement, and the interests of the broader similarly situated group. This should not be hard to achieve, by adapting familiar methods used to address conflicts of interests. For example, options can be restricted so as to prevent individual rather than group-level benefits. Or when such restriction is not possible, decision-makers can be tasked with making decisions for groups that are similarly situated to, but which do not include, the particular individuals with whom they experienced extended immersive engagement.
Finally, there is a worry that it is just not feasible for everyone, or even for those participating in a specific forum, to undergo extended immersive engagements. It may be both onerous and an intrusion on privacy to ask neglected groups to share their emotional experience with strangers. It may also be perceived as insulting, if they themselves are, for whatever reason, excluded from the decision-making fora. And in the case of empathy for future generations, it is not even clear with whom the extended immersive engagement ought to take place, given that the relevant communities do not yet even exist.
Three responses to concerns about feasibility are available. First, whereas the existing approaches focus on increasing empathy among the general citizenry, the holistic approach looks at the potential for empathic interventions in specific democratic design contexts. As such, the holistic approach allows that gains might be achieved by targeting the most powerful methods of empathic induction at particularly powerful individuals or institutions, especially government. Of course, empathic government relies on support from empathic citizens. But conversely, attempts to foster empathy across the citizenry at large are bolstered by support from empathic government. So a robust injection of GEMI in the latter using extended immersive engagement should not be seen as an alternative to fostering empathic motivation more widely, both using arms-length methods and by addressing forms of social segregation that serve as barriers to intergroup empathy, but as facilitating broader efforts to do so.
Second, for the communities that will host those undergoing the immersive engagement, moral concerns need not preclude such hosting, but do call for an ethical framework including the need for an appropriate and participatory approach to designing, implementing and monitoring the immersive opportunity, including respect for emotional privacy when desired and a clear understanding of the potential benefits on the part of the hosts. The Australian organisation Jawun, which facilitates immersive interactions between Indigenous communities and government and corporate leaders, provides a good model of how such experiences can take place in an ethical manner. 13 On the specific worry about future generations not yet existing, there are communities in the present that experience many of the harms that are relevant to the interests of future people, such as the impacts of climate change. Given that extended immersive engagement can lead to a generalised response, engagement with such communities is likely in many cases to lead to insight and motivation on behalf of future people in respect of the common threats to their well-being. 14
A third response to the feasibility concern is that the worry arises only when trying to create artificial opportunities for extended immersive engagement, in order to generate new GEMI. But there is already a lot of GEMI in the world arising from extended immersive engagements that people experience in the normal course of their lives, simply by interacting with those around them. Much of this GEMI goes to waste, in the sense that although people are well-informed and strongly motivated to help those for whom they experience GEMI, few have sufficient power to do much about it. The next section explores how this existing GEMI might be harnessed to promote democratic inclusivity.
Match Power to GEMI
Existing approaches propose methods for catalysing new empathy in the context of independently fixed patterns of power, where those patterns of power fail to match up against naturally occurring patterns of GEMI. Patterns of power may be taken to be fixed either by existing institutional structures, or by some proposed institutional design the nature of which is determined independently of considerations of empathy.
The holistic approach suggests an alternative way to harness both the motivational power and the epistemic benefits of empathy. As well as seeking to manufacture more empathy, it proposes that we also work with existing patterns of GEMI by aiming, where possible, to contour power around them. The occurrence of GEMI is to a certain extent predictable, insofar as we can draw on empirical evidence about the factors that usually facilitate or hinder empathy and its generalisation to GEMI. This makes it theoretically possible to design institutional mechanisms that allocate power such that those who are eligible for roles that bestow power can be reasonably expected to experience GEMI for those over whom they would have power. Doing so increases the likelihood that those whose decisions affect others come to the decisions with pre-existing epistemic insight, and the motivation to ensure that the others’ interests are fully and fairly considered.
How would we go about allocating power to align with existing patterns of GEMI? One way would be to recruit candidates to positions of power directly on the basis of how much GEMI they appear to exhibit for relevant groups, among other criteria. We might use this approach where it appears viable, but in most contexts it looks like a non-starter. How would such subjective judgements be made, and who would make them? How would we prevent subjectively judged recruitment criteria being played by power-seeking candidates who falsify the impression that they experience GEMI for a particular group, without actually doing so?
A better approach to pursuing alignment between power and GEMI is to look for general patterns of GEMI in society, in order to identify those who are most likely to experience GEMI for particular neglected groups. Those belonging to this category would then be favoured for positions that bestow decision-making power over the relevant group.
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But who are these people whom we can say, with reasonable confidence, are most likely to experience GEMI for particular neglected groups? There is a worry that the current proposal simply collapses into a further reason to allocate power directly to neglected groups themselves, as they are most likely to have strong and enduring GEMI for other members of the group. Redistributing power to previously excluded groups themselves is, as I noted at the outset, usually the best response to democratic exclusion (provided that issues of ‘internal exclusion’ are also addressed). But the hope with which we began was that empathy would also provide an alternative route to democratic inclusivity when such redistribution of power is
We can, however, push back against the assumption that the only people who can be reasonably expected to experience GEMI for members of a particular group are the members themselves. In many cases, supposedly different groups may actually be united by shared experience sufficient to generate GEMI between them. The difficulty for the present proposal is not that outsiders cannot reliably experience GEMI for members of a group. Rather, it is that we need to give an account of how to identify such outsiders. To address this problem, I suggest, we ought to look for what we might call ‘reliable proxies’: people or groups who, by virtue of their shared experience, can reasonably be expected to experience GEMI for members of an absent group. Quinn (2019: 1844), for example, describes how strong experience-based empathic motivation can ground action by members of a diaspora for those still living in a country. We might then propose that candidates for positions that would give decision-making power over the absent group should be favoured where they belong to a reliable proxy, at least where there are no especially strong competing reasons (such as non-transferable technical expertise) to favour other candidates. That is, when, and only when, members of a neglected group cannot speak for themselves, the second-best proposal is that those who make decisions about their interests should be drawn from reliable proxies, in the expectation that the reliable proxies will be both more motivated than others to fully consider the absent group’s interests, and in a better epistemic position to do so. Byskov and Hyams (2022) argue, along these lines, that members of future generations who will suffer the harmful impacts of climate change should be represented by vulnerable groups suffering from climate impacts in the present. Another example of a potential reliable proxy might be the interests of asylum seekers being represented by those who have successfully sought asylum and are now citizens of the relevant country. 16
A second worry about the proposed approach of contouring power to match existing patterns of GEMI is that people tend to experience GEMI for a particular group, rather than for two or more groups with opposed interests. So while the approach can be used for decisions that involve the interests of one particular group – decisions that are, in Goodin’s (2007: 65) terms, ‘decomposible’ – it may seem less evident how it can be used in cases involving trade-offs between different groups. But we should remember that existing arrangements in representative democracies often fail to promote democratic inclusivity not only because of a lack of empathy across divides, or because dominant groups choose not to listen to marginalised groups, but also because certain groups are not well represented in the first place. When advocating for inclusion of marginalised groups in democratic fora, the demand is not that members of the marginalised group should be the sole arbitrators of decisions that require trade-offs, only that members of marginalised groups should be included and listened to as part of the wider decision-making body. Likewise, the case for having reliable proxies represents a group that cannot represent itself need not require that the relevant representatives are in a position to act as exclusive decision-makers, qualified to act as reliable proxies for all groups whose interests are to be traded-off. Rather, democratic inclusivity is still better-served than it would otherwise be by having the absent group effectively represented by motivated and epistemically well-equipped reliable proxies in heterogeneous fora, among representatives of other groups. Such a recommendation is entirely compatible with also endorsing the use of other methods, including where possible extended immersive engagement, to foster empathic motivation and insight across the forum as a whole.
The Importance of Pragmatism
The discussion so far points to a mixed picture. Empathy offers an underused source of insight and motivation that could be put to good use in pursuit of democratic inclusivity. At the same time there are risks, including in particular the risk of biased decision-making. I have offered some reasons why, in many contexts, those risks might not be as problematic as some fear. But we should not expect one-size-fits-all solutions at the messy interface of human psychology and democratic design, and as I have indicated there will be some contexts where the risks of empathy outweigh its likely benefits. For that reason, we ought to take a pragmatic approach. We ought to use whatever tools seem feasible and safe, especially in terms of the risk of increasing bias, in the context of particular designs. Where opportunities to redistribute power in order to achieve a closer alignment between power and GEMI exist, we should take them. Where opportunities to safely manufacture new GEMI through extended immersive engagement exist, we should take them. Where significant barriers to redistributing power or to using extended immersive engagement exist, we might consider the extent to which arms-length methods of empathic induction can facilitate empathic motivation without posing an unacceptable risk of increasing bias, given the particular context in question.
But a focus on empathy will not always be the best way to proceed. Institutional tools to harness empathy are just that: tools, which belong in a varied toolbox to be used by democratic designers to foster insight and enhance particular motivations and suppress others in order to move us closer to the goal of democratic inclusivity. I have sought to show that, despite concerns, there is a strong case for empathy playing a central role. But that role need not be exclusive. We saw above that Nussbaum recommends drawing on moral principles alongside empathy. Other motivations, such as a commitment to discharging one’s institutional role, collectivism and instrumental motivations, can also work alongside empathy (c.f. Batson, 2011: 207–227; Batson, 2018: 251–270). Of course such motivational mechanisms tend to lack the epistemic benefits of empathy, and for that reason we should be attuned to the possibility that fostering motivation in the absence of empathically grounded insight could in some contexts yield worse outcomes than doing nothing – but that assessment will, once again, have to be made on a case-by-case basis.
Finally, we should remember that neglected groups are neglected not only because decision-makers are not sufficiently motivated to take their interests into account, or because they lack sufficient insight into what those interests are, but also because decision-makers are often incentivised
Conclusion
I have argued that the most effective way to harness empathy for democratic inclusivity is to adopt a holistic approach. The holistic approach recommends, first, being sensitive to the potential risks and consequences of catalysing empathy in specific decision-making contexts, particularly in terms of how such interventions would interact with existing patterns of group membership. Second, the approach suggests, where possible, using the strong generalised empathic motivation and insight, GEMI, generated by extended immersive engagements. Third, the approach asks us to think not only about how empathy can be introduced into existing institutions and designs, but how democratic innovations can themselves be designed in ways that bring patterns of power into closer alignment with naturally occurring patterns of GEMI. Fourth, the approach recommends taking a pragmatic view of which interventions, empathic or otherwise, might be most useful in any particular institutional context. Overall, the approach introduces new resources to respond to worries about empathy’s potential, especially about limits to our capacity to empathise, while recommending that the risks and potential gains be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
For helpful comments on previous versions of this paper the author thanks Gulnaz Anjum, Kimberley Brownlee, Simon Caney, Briony Jones, Mike Saward, Dan White and two anonymous referees for
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
