Emotional empathy significantly influences moral behavior by shaping our moral judgments and motivating us to act in ways that alleviate the suffering of others.
Emotional empathy, the capacity to feel what another person is feeling, creates a powerful connection between individuals. When we witness someone experiencing a negative emotional state, such as pain or distress caused by another person's actions, our own experience of empathy can trigger a chain reaction that impacts our moral compass and subsequent actions.
Empathy's Role in Moral Judgment
A key way emotional empathy influences morality is by directly affecting how we judge the actions of others. According to research, witnessing someone in pain can lead an observer to feel a form of that pain or distress vicariously.
- Observing Suffering: You see someone who has been harmed (e.g., hit).
- Experiencing Empathy: You feel a pang of their pain or distress.
- Forming Moral Judgment: This feeling motivates you to judge the action that caused their suffering (hitting them) as morally wrong.
For instance, if someone is in a negative emotional state as a result of another person's actions, for example, feels pain after being hit by another person, empathy may motivate an observer to judge that hitting others is morally wrong and, by extension, may motivate him to help the victim. This illustrates the direct link between feeling with someone and forming a strong moral stance against the action that harmed them.
Empathy as a Motivator for Moral Action
Beyond judgment, emotional empathy is a strong motivator for moral behavior, particularly helping or prosocial actions. Once empathy helps us label an action as wrong and recognize the victim's suffering, it prompts a desire to alleviate that suffering.
- Empathy Leads to Concern: Feeling someone else's distress creates a sense of concern for their well-being.
- Judgment Reinforces Need: Judging the cause of their suffering as wrong reinforces the perceived need for intervention or support.
- Motivation to Act: This combination drives a motivation to act morally, often by helping the victim or preventing further harm.
Examples of moral actions motivated by empathy include:
- Offering comfort to someone who is sad.
- Intervening to stop bullying.
- Donating to charity after hearing stories of hardship.
- Helping someone who has been wronged.
Essentially, emotional empathy provides the affective fuel that drives both our understanding of right and wrong in relation to others and our inclination to act ethically towards them.
