How the social brain experiences empathy, Part 3
More from the Empathy and the Brain conference.
The Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: Issues and Implications
Daniel Batson (University of Kansas)
“I came to empathy by the back door.” Interest in motivation for helping: whether, when we help others, it’s because we care about their welfare, or is it always in some way about ourselves? The old egoism/altrusim debate.
Depends what you mean by “altruism.” Helping? Costly helping? Self-sacrificial helping? Obviously humans do these things (on occasion).
- Altruism: A motivational state with the ultimate coal of increasing another’s welfare.
- Egosim: A motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing one’s own welfare.
Question is whether our motivation is ever, in any degree, altruistic? If you want to know when and where helping can be expected, and how effective it is likely to be, “helping” isn’t enough–we need to get at motives.
How the social brain experiences empathy, Part 2
Relations of Children’s Empathy-related Responding to Their Regulation and Social Functioning
Nancy Eisenberg (Arizona State University)
Empathy is often assumed to be a “moral” emotion, and to have a broad moral relevance. However, a 1982 meta-analysis by Underwood & Moore found no significant relationship between empathy & pro-social behavior such as cooperation & sharing.
Eisenberg argues that empathy-related reactions to play a crucial role in socioemotional & moral development, but earlier methodological models were flawed (based on self-reporting rather than physiological measures; also didn’t differentiate between sympathy & empathy).
How the social brain experiences empathy, Part 1
I’m in Chicago at the “How the social brain experiences empathy” conference sponsored by the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. I’ve developed an interest in the implications of cognitive science for the law: I’m currently co-teaching a seminar on “Religion, Spirituality, and Cognitive Science: Contemporary Establishment Clause Issues” with my colleague Stephanie Phillips, and I’m planning a seminar for next fall on Empathy and the Law. Live blogging follows, so any errors and omissions are my own.
Survival of the Kindest: The Evolution of Empathy
Frans de Waal (Emory University)
Definition: The ability to understand [cognitive] and share [emotional] the feelings of another.
- Top-down view: Understand other’s situation, put yourself mentally in their shoes.
- Bottom-up view: Being in tune with the other in the moment.
- Do animals have empathy? Top-down view: no; bottom-up view: yes.
Buffalo Journofail and the “Victory” of Steven Kurtz
The piece by Colin Dabkowski in today’s Buffalo News ArtsBeat section is entitled “A clear case of injustice ends in victory for free speech.” Remember Steven Kurtz? The University at Buffalo professor of art who awoke in 2004 to find that his wife Hope had passed away during the night of congenital heart failure? Who spent the next four years in legal hell, first charged with bioterrorism and then, when the grand jury found no evidence to support that charge, with absurd charges of mail fraud? Steve Kurtz, who was deprived of the opportunity to mourn by a hysterical post-9/11 legal system and the refusal of prosecutors to admit their mistake, until the charges were finally thrown out by a federal court? What possible feel-good ending could turn this tragedy into a “victory for free speech”?
The “victory,” it turns out, is that the legal defense fund set up by friends and supporters of Kurtz and the Critical Art Ensemble had $108,000 left over and has donated the funds to the Center for Constitutional Rights and the New York Chapter of the ACLU.
Here are the statements from the CCR and NY ACLU, in context:
“The NYCLU is very pleased to receive this generous contribution from the CAE Legal Defense Fund to continue our work in restoring, defending, and upholding our constitutional and fundamental rights, including artistic and academic freedoms,” said Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Vincent Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, congratulated the CAE Defense Fund “and its many dedicated and principled supporters for your extraordinary victory—a victory for our country and the Constitution as much as it is for the individuals.” He further stated that, “The CCR is honored to use the tremendous support of the Fund’s donors to continue the fight against repression of dissent and illegal detentions—work which, unfortunately, is still sorely needed.”
This hardly supports the closing of Dabkowski’s piece: “It’s hard to imagine a more harrowing story. But then again, it’s hard to imagine a happier ending.” The CCR’s Warren cautions that “the fight against repression of dissent … is still sorely needed,” but in Dabkowski’s fairy tale version it becomes “a triumphant victory.” In fact, Dabkowski’s spin to the denouement of this story only further exploits Kurtz and the ordeal he suffered in the service of another feel-good story for the Buffalo News.
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Duly Noted
- Nerudova St., Prague December 24, 2009Nerudova St., Prague
- Nerudova St., Prague December 24, 2009Nerudova St., Prague
- Lamplighter, Mala Strana, Prague December 24, 2009Lamplighter, Mala Strana, Prague
- Nerudova St., Mala Strana, Prague December 24, 2009Nerudova St., Mala Strana, Prague
- Nerudova St., Mala Strana, Prague December 24, 2009Nerudova St., Mala Strana, Prague
