Dan Zahavi

The Empathy Trap | Dan Zahavi

Oxford professor of philosophy Dan Zahavi asks whether empathy is our best base for morality? We have all been encouraged to imagine how it feels to be in someone else's shoes. But is empathy really a good base for our morality? Might there be some truth to the new arguments emerging that empathy is so biased and parochial that anybody who wishes to promote social justice should avoid it at all costs? Director of the Centre for Subjectivity Research, Dan Zahavi, probes the value of empathy.


Give an overview of the phenomenologists definition of empathy.

  • Other oriented empathy

  • Emotional Contagion - not empathy

  • Imaginative empathy - not empathy

  • etc


The full video is on the IAI website behind a paywall