The main criticism of empathy in section 5 (the section which argues that empathy could be harmful and not merely ineffectual) is partiality. Empathy is felt towards a specific target, which could lead to a failure to help people other than that target or even actions that help the target at the expense of others. But other moral emotions face the same problem. Anger is stronger for local misdeeds than for global ones—Americans were angrier about BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico than about other oil spills in other parts of the world. Someone who feels grateful about being helped by another person is liable to repay the good deed by helping that person at the expense of other people. Someone who would feel guilty about letting an elderly neighbor die in a heat wave may be motivated to check in on that neighbor to offer help, but they might not feel any guilt about people dying in Africa and do nothing about it.
So the questions are whether empathy is better or worse than other moral motivators in terms of partiality, and whether effective techniques for overcoming partiality make use of empathy. I’m not sure about the first question, but for the second question empathy seems promising. In many cases, cultivating empathy involves learning to feel empathy for new groups of people, which means partially overcoming partiality. People like Peter Singer who have emphasized empathy often talk about expanding the moral circle to feel empathy towards a larger set of beings, and extending empathy to care about more people seems easier than expanding on emotions like anger, guilt, or gratitude.
The main criticism of empathy in section 5 (the section which argues that empathy could be harmful and not merely ineffectual) is partiality. Empathy is felt towards a specific target, which could lead to a failure to help people other than that target or even actions that help the target at the expense of others. But other moral emotions face the same problem. Anger is stronger for local misdeeds than for global ones—Americans were angrier about BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico than about other oil spills in other parts of the world. Someone who feels grateful about being helped by another person is liable to repay the good deed by helping that person at the expense of other people. Someone who would feel guilty about letting an elderly neighbor die in a heat wave may be motivated to check in on that neighbor to offer help, but they might not feel any guilt about people dying in Africa and do nothing about it.
So the questions are whether empathy is better or worse than other moral motivators in terms of partiality, and whether effective techniques for overcoming partiality make use of empathy. I’m not sure about the first question, but for the second question empathy seems promising. In many cases, cultivating empathy involves learning to feel empathy for new groups of people, which means partially overcoming partiality. People like Peter Singer who have emphasized empathy often talk about expanding the moral circle to feel empathy towards a larger set of beings, and extending empathy to care about more people seems easier than expanding on emotions like anger, guilt, or gratitude.