Empathy, Recognition, Morality

CFS Conference with confirmed speakers including Stephen Darwall, Jean Decety, John Drummond, Natasha Gill, James Jardine, Joel Krueger, Victoria McGeer, Philip Pettit, Jason Throop and Dan Zahavi.

Since 2011, VELUX FONDEN has funded a large research project on empathy at the Center for Subjectivity Research. A central concern of the research has been on the question of what empathy is, and on what role it plays in social cognition.

The final event organized as part of this research project will focus on the relation between empathy and morality. Featuring world-renowned specialists on empathy coming from philosophy, neuroscience and anthropology, the aim of the conference is to discuss the question of whether empathy is a moral virtue. Is empathy something that can be cultivated? Should we strive to expand our empathic powers, since a high degree of empathy is a requirement for doing good, or is empathy so biased and so easily abused that it might be better to put it aside, if we really want to promote justice and fairness?

Registration

The conference is free and open to all but registration is needed.
Registration is closed.

Programme:

Thursday, September 21, 2017

09:15-09:30

Introduction

09:30-10:30 

Jean Decety (University of Chicago, USA):

The complex relation between empathy and morality:

A social neuroscience perspective

10:30‐11:00 

Coffee Break

11:00‐12:00

John Drummond (Fordham University, USA): 

Empathy and the foundations of morality

12:00-13:00

Lunch Break

13:00‐14:00

Dan Zahavi (CFS, DK):

From white to black and back again: Empathy, alterity, and morality

14:00-14:30

Coffee Break

14:30-15:30

Victoria McGeer (Princeton University, USA & ANU, Australia):

Empathy internalized: on the scaffolding power of self-directed emotion

15:30-16:30

Natasha Gill (TRACK4, UK):

The grand illusion: Empathy and conflict resolution 

Friday, September 22, 2017

09:30-10:30

Stephen Darwall (Yale University, USA):

Against against empathy

10:30-11:00

Coffee Break

11:00‐12:00

Philip Pettit (Princeton University, USA & ANU, Australia):

Exhortation, censure and responsibility.

12:00-13:00

Lunch Break

13:00‐14:00

Joel Krueger (University of Exeter, UK):

Empathy, externalism, and mental disorder

14:00-14:30

Coffee Break

14:30-15:30

James Jardine (University College Dublin, Ireland):

Elementary recognition and interpersonal empathy

15:30-16:30

Jason Throop (UCLA, USA):

Morality, empathy, and pain: 

Some phenomenological anthropological considerations

Contact

Administrator Merete Lynnerup, email address: mly@hum.ku.dk