In this book, Martin Hoffman attempts to combine an empirical and a philosophical account of moral development, focusing on the concept of empathy. The empirical studies are distributed over three types of cases: innocent bystander, transgression, and virtual transgression.

The case studies and anecdotes which the author uses to defend and illustrate his claims are fascinating, and at times very revealing. I’m thinking in particular of the chapter on ‘relationship guilt’ where the author describes one’s tendency to feel guilty when someone close is unhappy and explains that this is the result of the following piece of reasoning : she has been unhappy in the past because I have hurt her. So it must be my fault she is unhappy now.

One may feel, however, that the thread of the argument gets a bit lost in this catalogue of cases. The main theoretical points are in bold, which in theory should make them easy to follow. However, they are not clearly linked to each other, nor is it always explicit how the cases described constitute evidence for the thesis stated.

To be fair, a lot of these issues may not arise for a reader who is familiar with this kind of empirical research and in particular with the texts cited. For the more theoretically based reader, more sign-posting would be a great help.

In the last eighty pages of the book, the author turns to the philosophical implications of his findings. This part of the book should have been the most interesting for me, as I read Empathy and Moral Development mainly because I was lured by the subtitle, i.e. because I am a philosopher who is interested in possible empirical back up for theories of moral development .

The author starts with a discussion of the need for moral principles. He claims that they must play a role in pro-social behavior and that empathy is not enough. Unfortunately, he does not argue for this claim, nor does he consider that one kind of moral theory, virtue ethics, does without moral principles altogether. This is a shame as it seems his discussion of the development of empathy would constitute a sound empirical back up for a certain kind of virtue ethics, virtue ethics being the only kind of moral theory to take emotional development as central to moral worth.

The author concentrates instead on caring (which he equates with Utilitarianism) and Justice (Kant and Rawls). The description of these theories is flimsy to say the least and the thesis seems to be that whether you go for justice or caring, a moral principle has the effect of stabilizing the empathic response, i.e. make sure it is neither over or under-aroused. Thus, the principle makes for a better moral response, and also plays an important role in the education of empathic emotions. Here again, one wishes the author was a little more thorough and explained in more detail what role the learning of principles should play in moral education and whether one kind of principles is better than others.

Overall, one feels that the author is more at home with empirical psychology than he is with philosophy, and one wishes he had collaborated with a philosopher on the last part of the book, or else, left philosophy well alone. I’m afraid this book is likely to be a disappointment for a philosopher who is interested in moral development. The empirical part does not offer enough detailed theory to be of any help for the non expert. The philosophical part does not develop any argument in enough depth to be of real interest to a philosopher, and gets some important things wrong (caring is not the same as Utilitarianism, Rawls does consider questions of motivation).

© Sandrine Berges 2001

Sandrine Berges is a member of the Department of International Relations, University of Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey.

Categories: Philosophical, Ethics