Empathy and Moral Conduct and Motivation

‘Empathy and Moral Conduct and Motivation’ takes on a very special perspective in defending empathy: instead of confuting some of the criticisms made to empathy by anti-empathic scholars, it is here pointed out how these apparent shortcomings can in fact become strengths. What Paul Bloom calls the spotlight effect of empathy carries—if properly harnessed—the potentiality of being a great and irreplaceable stimulus for moral action and the so-called ‘identifiable victim effect’ can, if generalised, provide empathy with a stark emotional energy leading to moral motivation.