This week at The Junkyard we’re hosting a symposium on Heidi Maibom’s recent book The Space Between: How Empathy Really Works (OUP 2022). See here for an introduction from Heidi. Commentaries and replies are appearing Tuesday through Friday.

* * *

Three cheers for More Empathy with Some Additional Sympathy for Adam Smith’s Impartial Spectator: Commentary from Karsten R. Stueber

I comment on Heidi Maibom’s engaging new book with great enthusiasm. It is a pleasure to read and provides us with an astonishingly comprehensive exploration of the different perspectives that characterize the dimensions of interpersonal understanding within the social realm. Maibom distinguishes for this purpose among the agent, the observer, and the interactor perspectives (Part I, chs. 1-5). Based on an extensive review of the psychological literature and well-chosen examples from ordinary life and literature, she deftly analyses the nature of these perspectives and characterizes their potential shortcomings in conceiving of another person’s agency. Maibom focuses mainly on the agent perspective and our ability to acquire interpersonal understanding through empathic perspective taking, allowing us to grasp other persons’ emotional attunement to the world and their motivational framework for their actions. Right from the start, Maibom emphasizes that understanding another person has to be conceptually distinguished from becoming or being that person. Indeed, as she points out even our understanding of ourselves does not differ in kind from the understanding of other persons. It is only in the gap between us, associated with a clear awareness of the distinction between self and other, that interpersonal understanding takes place.

I will focus my comments in the following on the last two chapters of the book. I will be particularly concerned about the relationship between empathy and impartiality. Let me however start with a minor quibble. Throughout the book Maibom does an admirable job of highlighting the prosocial advantages and shortcomings of empathy without giving in to the temptation of blaming exclusively empathy for everything that is wrong with mankind as has been the case lately among empathy’s “cultured despisers,” as I like to call them,[1] such as Paul Bloom (2016), Jesse Prinz (2011a & b) and in more modest manner, Fritz Breithaupt (2019). Yet in chapter 9, even Maibom succumbs to this temptation in diagnosing what she calls the empathy trap. I agree with her, that an important function of empathy consists in figuring out how other people are thinking and feeling about us and in providing us with the necessary intersubjective recognition so important for our self-esteem and self-conception. Accordingly, empathy plays a central role for constituting ourselves as independent and autonomous selves within the social domain. As Adam Smith also pointed out it is only through mutual empathy that we are provided with a social mirror enabling us to gain a normative appreciation of our own character and behavior as being proper or improper, beautiful or deformed (Smith 1982, 110). Normally such constitution takes place through engaging with a wide variety of people in very different social contexts. In this manner, society also sustains a broad range of social norms that apply to various domains of social interaction as those norms supervene on normative expectations that we have of each other. A healthy conception of ourselves emerges by negotiating these varied normative expectations and by becoming simultaneously aware in this process that our self is also more than other persons’ expectations. Yet as Maibom illustrates nicely with the help of reflecting on the complicated interpersonal dynamics of a ménage-a-trois, which particularly the French like to talk about—in this case Simone de Beauvoir in her novel She Came to Stay—our ordinary diversity of empathic encounters might be interrupted when we can become obsessed with what only one person is thinking about us. Rather than gaining a self that conceives of itself as being different from other consciousnesses we seem to lose ourselves by becoming entrapped in what the other person thinks about us. Yet while empathy certainly plays an important causal role in providing the mediating mechanism allowing us to grasp what the other person is thinking about us, it seems to be unfair to merely blame empathy for these phenomena. The exclusive obsession with just one person is not entirely empathy’s fault but involves other emotional phenomena such as jealousy and all the unsavory and unconscious desires and urges that Freudians like to talk about. Maibom might respond by pointing out that she has much broader phenomena in mind like the oppression of whole classes of people, such as women, African Americans, different Indian castes, or the lower feudal classes of medieval Europe. Yet while empathy certainly plays a mediating role in bringing about the internalization of social norms associated with one’s social status one should not forget that these norms are also backed up and justified more explicitly in terms of theoretical, at times even scientific, and religious conceptions of the immutable structure of the social world. To merely blame empathy in this context is like blaming the messenger.

For Maibom, however, the above danger of empathy does not imply that we should turn our back on empathy. Rather empathy’s shortcomings can only be rectified by more empathy. In contrast to many (myself included, see Stueber 2017)), she surprisingly rejects Adam Smith’s attempt to overcome empathy’s well-known biases by appealing to the impartial spectator perspective as a regulative device for our empathic capacities. If I understand Maibom correctly, she does so for the following reasons: First, focusing on the impartial spectator perspective does not allow us to account for morally acceptable forms of partiality that arise out of our personal obligations toward our friends and family (p. 230). Second (and third depending on how you count) the impartial spectator perspective does not allow us to take the individuality of perspectives seriously enough (236) and thus leads to a paternalistic attitude toward the parties involved in a moral dispute (234). I must admit that I find Maibom’s objections puzzling, but maybe that has also to do with our different interpretive perspectives on what exactly Smith is saying.

The following three features are central for Smith’s conception of the impartial spectator perspective. Most importantly, being committed to the impartial spectator perspective implies that one realizes that one is “one of the multitude in no respect better than any other in it” (Smith 1982, 137; see also 83 and 228). It also disciplines the way we take the perspective of another person in order to overcome well-known empathy biases. Finally, it is the perspective from which Smiths thinks that we morally approve of another person’s sentiments in case we can empathize with them. As Stephen Darwall expresses it, it is a perspective where “we imaginatively project, not as ourselves, but as any one of us” (Darwall 1999, 142). Empathic perspective-taking regulated by the impartial spectator perspective is thus a perspective where we are removed from the heat of the action, know all the relevant aspects of the situation, but are otherwise indifferent to the outcome of the goals that the various actors pursue. In contrast to Firth’s ideal observer, the impartial spectator retains the normal range of human emotions. I like to compare the situation of the impartial spectator with the perspective of a soccer fan who has his favorite team but who watches a soccer match of teams he is not particularly interested in. He is far removed from the action of the field (even more so than the umpire refereeing the game) and indifferent to its outcome. He is of course very familiar with the emotions that arise while playing and watching the game. It is from this point of view where we regard both teams and their fans to have equal worth that we are in the best position to take the perspective of any of the involved actors in order to adjudicate any dispute between them. Such perspective seems to me also the perspective that Maibom should want us to occupy because it is only from that perspective that we can engage with them seriously. Moreover, contrary to what Maibom asserts, Smith’s impartial spectator can acknowledge the special moral significance that personal relations have for human beings. He of course acknowledges such “partiality” impartially and would be appalled if it would lead to rampant nepotism.

Nevertheless, we have to be circumspect about the claim that empathizing impartially means to do so from the perspective of “any one of us,” as Darwall likes to express it, and that such empathic reenactment automatically makes us approve of the sentiments and actions of another person. Ultimately, and I think Maibom would agree, perspective taking, even if done impartially in the above sense, is always perspectival and dependent on my outlook onto the world (but that point is different from the issue of bias). In reenacting another person’s perspective accurately,  I have to take care of relevant differences between us. In order to do so I have to imaginatively adopt beliefs, desires, and commitments that I do not share with the other person, and I must quarantine the mental states that he does not share with me from my reenactment. Accordingly, I bring another person’s perspective home to myself only in an incapsulated manner as I like to call it. Even if another person’s point of view becomes in this manner reasonable to me, it does not imply that I automatically approve of it. That is, even if Hermia’s father would take properly take the perspective of Hermia as she demands in Shakespeare’s play (see chap. 1), he thereby will not necessarily approve of her violating the norms of showing proper filial respect. Think in this context about a common theme in contemporary Hindi comedies centering around the topic of arranged marriages in contemporary Indian societies (see the recent film Wedding Season on Netflix as a good example). The mothers are quite understanding of their daughters’ hesitancy to agree to an arranged wedding. They themselves had their own experience in this respect, but they ultimately agreed to give up on their past love interests and learn to love their husbands. They realized the wisdom of the traditional system. Unconstrained love can be a dangerous thing since it does not necessarily respect boundaries of class, race, religion and what not (even though empirically speaking it tends to do so more often than we might expect. After all even Hermia does not fall in love with a non-Christian, non-English, random, and poor kind of guy from the street). Accordingly, empathic perspective is necessary for normatively approving of a person’s conduct. Yet, where such perspective-taking concerns the violation of entrenched social norm it only can be a first step for such approval. It allows us to recognize the prima facie reasonableness of another person’s perspective and in this manner broadens our own horizon. This is also the reason why movements to change social norms such as the women rights movement or the civil rights movement always lead to a change of teaching American history to allow us to empathize and listen to so far neglected perspectives. Nevertheless, or so it seems to me, all of this cannot be done without some commitment to impartiality and what Smith might call the impartial spectator perspective.

Regardless of whether one ultimately agrees with my claims I hope that I have properly and sufficiently impartially reconstructed Heidi Maibom’s position and arguments. My reflections hopefully have illustrated that her book is a rewarding one to read and worthwhile to reflect upon.

[1] My term is inspired by Friedrich Schleiermacher’s essay “On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers.”

References

Bloom, P. 2016. Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. New York: Ecco.

Breithaupt, Fr. 2019. The Dark Sides of Empathy. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

Darwall, St. 1999. “Sympathetic Liberalism. Recent Work on Adam Smith.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 28, 139-164.

Prinz, J. J. 2011a. “Against Empathy,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, Spindel Supplement 49: 214–233.

Prinz, J. J. 2011b. “Is Empathy Necessary for Morality?” in Coplan and Goldie (eds.), Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, 211–229.

Smith, A. 1759/1982. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D.D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie. . The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund Press.

Stueber, K. 2017. “Smithian Constructivism: Elucidating the Reality of the Normative Domain,” in R. Debes and K. Stueber (eds.), Ethical Sentimentalism: New Perspectives, 192–209. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Response from Heidi L. Maibom

Karsten Stueber objects to my doing away, as it were, with the Impartial Spectator. This is problematic, he says, because this is the point of view from which we morally approve or disapprove of someone’s actions and because it is specifically designed to overcome well-known empathy biases. Moreover, contrary to my claims, the Impartial Spectator perspective does not lead to paternalism because—and here he quotes Darwall —“we imaginatively project, not as ourselves, but as any of us.” Instead, empathic perspective taking regulated by the impartial spectator perspective is one in which we are “removed from the heat of the action, know all the relevant aspects of the situation, but are otherwise indifferent to the outcomes of the goals of that the various actions pursue,” he writes. Stueber is right, of course, that the perspective of an Impartial Spectator solves many problems that are inherent in making empathy central to moral judgment. I still believe, however, that the disadvantages to this view outweigh its benefits.

What does it mean to imagine “as any of us?” It involves, it seems, to know all the relevant aspects of the situation, and to be otherwise indifferent to the outcomes of any goals pursued by the agents whose actions we are, at the end of the day, judging. My first objection to this view is that it is impossible to know all the relevant aspects of the situation from one point of view, be it from our own, or that of a moral authority or an Impartial Spectator. In fact, I am partial to the view that we will likely never be able to know all the relevant aspects of one situation—even if we just consider just the morally relevant aspects—given our cognitive and emotional limitations. But even assuming less extensive knowledge, it follows from the view that I have developed in the book that one must take different points of view to get a fuller perspective on a situation, for instance one must consider it at least from both an agent and an observer perspective. The task is then to integrate these different perspectives into a coherent one. There is no “any of us” perspective that will cover this, as far as I can tell. Or perhaps it is better to say that either the Impartial Spectator view is identical to the one that I propose, but in that case it does have an aspect of interestedness that comes from either the agent or observer perspective (there are no completely disinterested perspectives), or it is not, in which case it is, in effect, impossible. In this respect, I agree with Nietzsche who criticizes philosophers for assuming that there is an all-seeing eye, a way of ‘seeing’ or ‘spectating the world’ from no point of view. There is no contemplation without interest—Nietzsche calls such ideas of “objectivity” absurd—but instead “the ability to control one’s Pro and Con and to dispose of them, so that one knows how to employ a variety of perspectives and affective interpretations in the service of knowledge.” (Nietzsche 1887/1989, III, 12)

I would also like to voice two other concerns I have about the Impartial Spectator. I said above that a perspective is always interested in some way. It is never completely disinterested. Contrary to appearances, this is not a problem if we consider the perspectives of the stakeholders in whatever project we are involved in (a morality project, for instance). In particular, when it comes to morality, we do not want people to be disinterested. We do not want umpires, who have no interest in the outcomes of the goals people pursue. Morality is not a game, but a serious enterprise and moral judgments have the potential to ruin lives. Morally judging others requires a much more engaged and understanding attitude—also from the perspective of the very interested people whose interests are at stake—than one that is promised by an Impartial Spectator. In the book, I talk about this in some more depth particularly as concerns the law.

Lastly, a point about paternalism. Suppose we agree that we ought to take the perspective of any one of us and that this is, in fact, possible. How would we know that we have taken the perspective on any one of us and not just our own or some other perspective unrepresentative of all the members of the moral community? I think that would be very difficult to determine. But, reading the literature, it is evident that many feel perfectly comfortable assuming that they can take this view. I agree with the feminist critique, some of which I discussed in the last chapter of the book, of this attitude as, indeed, paternalistic.

Reference

Nietzsche, F. 1887/1989. The Genealogy of Morals. Translated by W. Kaufman. New York: Vintage Books.