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Empathy and Testimonial Trust

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2018

Olivia Bailey
Olivia Bailey*
Affiliation:
Tulane University
*
obailey@tulane.edu
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Abstract

Our collective enthusiasm for empathy reflects a sense that it is deeply valuable. I show that empathy bears a complex and surprisingly problematic relation to another social epistemic phenomenon that we have reason to value, namely testimonial trust. My discussion focuses on empathy with and trust in people who are members of one or more oppressed groups. Empathy for oppressed people can be a powerful tool for engendering a certain form of testimonial trust, because there is a tight connection between empathy and a (limited) approval of another's outlook. I then argue that the qualities of empathy that make it such a powerful tool for bridging differences and building trust also have a problematic upshot: they make it the case that reliance on empathy will sometimes have a distorting effect upon the ways we extend testimonial trust.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 84: Harms and Wrongs in Epistemic Practice , November 2018 , pp. 139 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2018 

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References

1 Andrea Grimes, ‘White Women, Let's Get Our Shit Together’, Rewire (5 Nov, 2014), <https://rewire.news/article/2014/11/05/white-women-lets-get-shit-together/>; Leslie Watson Malachi, ‘40 Years After Roe, My Personal Fight for Justice’, The Huffington Post (22 Jan, 2013). <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-watson-malachi/40-years-after-roe-my-per_b_2526408.html>; RS21, ‘In or Out, We Must Show Solidarity with Migrants and Refugees’, RS21 (15 June, 2016), <https://rs21.org.uk/2016/06/15/in-or-out-we-must-show-solidarity-with-migrants-and-refugees/>.

2 Quoted in Abby Phillip, ‘Clinton: “We know that there is something wrong in our country”’, The Washington Post (8 July, 2017), <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/07/08/after-deeply-troubling-dallas-killings-clinton-calls-for-more-respect/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.53539fb14353>.

3 For worries about fair distribution, see Prinz, Jesse, ‘Against Empathy’, The Southern Journal of Philosophy 49 (2011), 214–233CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Bloom, Paul, Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion (New York: HarperCollins, 2016)Google Scholar. For worries about passivity and colonization, see Boler, Morgan, ‘The Risks of Empathy: Interrogating Multiculturalism's Gaze’, Cultural Studies 11 (1997), 253–273CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Pedwell, Carolyn, Affective Relations: The Transnational Politics of Empathy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 I will use the term ‘oppressed’ as shorthand for ‘oppressed, subjugated, discriminated against, or otherwise systematically disadvantaged’. One can simultaneously be a member of one or more oppressed groups and one or more privileged groups.

5 The last decade has seen a wave of philosophical interest in the ways that stereotypes about members of oppressed groups shape attributions of credibility. For particularly influential work in this area, see Code, Lorraine, Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Fricker, Miranda, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Mills, Charles, ‘White Ignorance’, in Sullivan, Shannon and Tuana, Nancy (eds.), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 11–38Google Scholar. For evidence of cross-group empathy ‘gaps’, see Trawalter, Sophie, Hoffman, Kelly M., and Waytz, Adam, ‘Racial Bias in Perceptions of Others’ Pain’, PLOS ONE 7 (2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Eres, Robert and Molenberghs, Pascal, ‘The Influence of Group Membership on the Neural Correlates Involved in Empathy’, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7 (2013)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

6 One way this observation has been framed is that in accepting testimony, one accepts the testifier's assurance that p. See e.g. Moran, Richard, ‘Getting Told and Being Believed’, Philosophers’ Imprint 5 (2005), 1–29Google Scholar.

7 I say ‘can’ because simply (1) being aware of T’s testimony and (2) believing that p on the basis that T, an epistemically competent and honest agent, has testified that p is not strictly sufficient for testimonial trust. It must also be the case that I have accepted an invitation issued by T to believe T that p. I set aside, here, questions about belief based on overheard testimony.

8 Those who draw a distinction between ‘cognitive empathy’ and empathy that involves feeling include Kauppinen, Antti, ‘Empathy, Emotion Regulation, and Moral Judgment’, in Maibom, Heidi (ed.), Empathy and Morality (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 97–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Hoffman, Martin, ‘Empathy, Justice, and the Law’, in Coplan, Amy and Goldie, Peter (eds.), Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 230–254CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Smith consistently uses ‘sympathy’ to refer to emotionally-charged imaginative perspective taking.

10 Smith, Adam, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Raphael, D. D. and Macfie, A. L. (eds.) (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1982), 16Google Scholar.

11 A prime example is Prinz, ‘Against empathy’.

12 From the ‘Lecture 100th’, March 1870. Transcription from Duncan, Elmer and Baird, Robert, ‘Thomas Reid's Criticisms of Adam Smith's Theory of the Moral Sentiments’, Journal of the History of Ideas 38 (1977), 517CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Damasio's studies of planning and decisional deficiencies in emotionally impaired subjects support this claim. See Damasio, Antonio, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Rationality and the Human Brain (New York: Penguin Books, 1994)Google Scholar.

14 Mx Nillin, ‘Bathrooms and Being Non-Binary’, Mx Nillin (26 Apr, 2016), <http://mxnillin.com/bathrooms-and-being-non-binary/>.

15 Anonymous/Real Talk: WOC and Allies, ‘White People, Stop Asking Us to Educate You About Racism’, Medium (27 May, 2017), <https://medium.com/@realtalkwocandallies/white-people-stop-asking-us-to-educate-you-about-racism-69273d39d828>.

16 Kirsty Major, ‘If You're a Man Who Calls Himself a Feminist, You Need to Actually Act Like One’, The Independent (1 Apr, 2017), <https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/sexism-men-woke-misogynists-feminism-male-feminists-what-to-do-a7660841.html>.

17 See Hoffman, Martin, Empathy and Moral Development: Implications for Caring and Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 197–219Google Scholar.

18 S.M.’s case is described in a number of articles, including Feinstein, Justin et al. , ‘The Human Amygdala and the Induction and Experience of Fear’, Current Biology 21 (2001), 34–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 ‘David’ cited in Michael Hoinski, ‘Close to Homeless’, Texas Observer (29 Jan, 2010), <https://www.texasobserver.org/close-to-homeless/>; Terrell Jermaine Starr, ‘Dear White People: Here are 5 Reasons Why You Can't Really Feel Black Pain’, Alternet (4 Dec, 2014), <http://www.alternet.org/dear-white-people-here-are-5-reasons-why-you-cant-really-feel-black-pain>.

20 For a collection of the variety of positions on offer, see Harding, Sandra (ed.), The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies (New York: Routledge, 2004)Google Scholar.

21 Casual street harassment centrally includes: graphic, unsolicited commentary on the target's body, demands or invitations to engage in sexual activity, wolf-whistling, following the target down the street.

22 An interview with a street harasser who articulates this view is available in Glass, Ira and Gordon-Smith, Eleanor, ‘Hollaback Girl’, in ‘Once More, With Feeling’, This American Life 603 (WBEZ Chicago, 2 Dec, 2016)Google Scholar, <https://www.thisamericanlife.org/603/once-more-with-feeling/act-one>.

23 See e.g. Vasquez, Eduardo et al. , ‘The Sexual Objectification of Girls and Aggression Towards Them in Gang and Non-gang Affiliated Youth’, Psychology, Crime & Law 23 (2017), 459–471CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Gervais, Sarah, DiLillo, David, and McChargue, Dennis, ‘Understanding the Link Between Men's Alcohol Use and Sexual Violence Perpetration: The Mediating Role of Sexual Objectification’, Psychology of Violence 3 (2014), 1–44Google Scholar.

24 From Ellison v. Brady, 924 F.2d 872 (9th Cir. 1991): ‘We adopt the perspective of a reasonable woman primarily because we believe that a sex-blind reasonable person standard tends to be male-biased and tends to systematically ignore the experiences of women’.

25 Mitch Albom, ‘When Sexting Becomes a Crime’, Chicago Tribune (20 Oct, 2014), <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-sexting-jennifer-lawrence-pornography-pedophili-20141020-story.html>.

26 Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Harvard Workshop in Moral and Political Theory and the Penn-Rutgers-Princeton Social Epistemology Workshop. I thank the participants in those workshops, as well as the attendees, presenters, and organizers of the Royal Institute of Philosophy Conference.