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EMPATHY, CHARACTER, AND THE ART OF MORAL LIVING by KIMBERLEY DIANNE PHILLIPS ... PDF

279 Pages·2015·1.15 MB·English
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THE ENCHANTMENT OF ETHICS: EMPATHY, CHARACTER, AND THE ART OF MORAL LIVING by KIMBERLEY DIANNE PHILLIPS PARZUCHOWSKI A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of Philosophy and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2015 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Kimberley Dianne Phillips Parzuchowski Title: The Enchantment of Ethics: Empathy, Character, and the Art of Moral Living This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Philosophy by: Mark Johnson Chairperson Alejandro Vallega Core Member Beata Stawarska Core Member Sara Hodges Institutional Representative and Scott L. Pratt Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded December 2015 ii © 2015 Kimberley Dianne Phillips Parzuchowski iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Kimberley Dianne Phillips Parzuchowski Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy December 2015 Title: The Enchantment of Ethics: Empathy, Character, and the Art of Moral Living My dissertation explores the role of narrative in the cultivation of empathy for ethical attitudes and behaviors. I begin by exploring an uncommon view of human nature, concluding that we are not autonomously individualistic rational deciders but ultrasocial moral intuitionists. Intersubjective relations run deep and provide the basis by which we shape the meaning of our lives as individuals in communities. It is because of this that we need to reconsider and redesign our moral cultivation programs both for the child-rearing years and throughout adult life. I look at empathy, the means of our mutual understanding, care, and help, as a key site for moral cultivation. I explicate the neurophysiological bases of empathy, both conscious and unconscious. Empathy is on the continuum with very primitive, automatic mirroring systems, which through varying levels of mimicry facilitate social cognition and moral insight and action. Empathy enables us to enter into the worlds and feelings of others in rich and full- bodied ways and can reveal their full subjectivity. Such experiences can incite empathic regard and compassionate action, but empathy, like all of our psycho-social capacities, requires cultivation to develop its skillfulness in practice. Narrative is an obvious means of cultivating empathy because it is humanity’s primary meaning-making structure, utilizing the empathic imagination to seduce us into the inner worlds of others. Through iv narrative dramatizations of experience, we learn to see and feel from another’s point of view, sensitizing us to their inner states and outward behavior. Such sensitivity can facilitate improving our moral attitudes and action by dislodging preoccupation with self- concern and instigating higher regard for others. In narratives we can imaginatively practice various moral actions, witnessing possible results. Reflective engagement can then bring the moral insights of these imaginative experiences to life in our practical worlds by attuning us to what is morally salient. Narrative engagement is thus a natural and vital part of shaping empathic moral perception for compassionate action. By reading and feeling with others reflectively, we can expand empathy for the pluralistic communities in which we live, make meaning, and grow. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Kimberley Dianne Phillips Parzuchowski GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA Eastern Washington University, Pullman, WA Walla Walla University, College Place, WA DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, Philosophy 2015, University of Oregon Master of Arts, Philosophy 2009, University of Oregon Bachelor of Arts, English 1991, Walla Walla University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Ethics; Moral Imagination Philosophical Psychology (Theory of Mind) PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Teaching Fellow, Instructor, 2006-2015] University of Oregon English as a Foreign Language Instructor, 1994-1997 Taegu, South Korea Instructor, 1991-1994 Walla Walla University GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Paideia Graduate Teaching Fellow Award, 2015 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank all of the members of my committee, Dr. Stawarska, Dr. Hodges, Dr. Vallega, and Dr. Johnson for their guidance, support, source, and theoretical advice. Each of you has helped me to bring this project together, and I thank you. I especially want to thank my advisor, the chair of my committee, Mark Johnson, for the many hours of discussion, extensive review of my work, and apt advice that he has given to my work, helping me to gather these broad ideas of moral cognition, narrative, and ethics into a cohesive whole. I want to thank the University of Oregon, the Humanities Program and Religious Studies Departments, and the Philosophy Department, in particular, for my Graduate Teaching Fellowships throughout the years, for their generous support of a student- mother struggling to meet academic requirements amidst ongoing familial demands. It was long my aspiration to become a philosophy teacher and writer, and thanks to this University and its wonderful faculty in these departments, I have had the privilege of developing those skills. It has been a profound and meaningful experience, for which I am deeply grateful. I want to thank all of my beautiful family and friends for their many years of support and for their faith in me. Thank you my god-parents, my sisters, my parents-in- law, my mother, and my dear, dear friends. It is easier to strive when you have the kind of community with which I have been blessed. I want to thank my husband, Bret, whose support through the years has made this day possible, and whose constancy would make Jane Austen proud. I lastly want to thank my beloved boys, Tristan and Tomas, whose joy and laughter gave me courage to persevere when I felt unsure or afraid, and whose tears vii and anger have taught me more about the meaning and complexity of moral life than any book I have ever read. viii To my family, whose imaginations and lives have inspired the work of these pages. To my husband Bret, my loving and very supportive partner, to my beautiful, precious boys, Tristan and Tomas, without whom I would not have had sufficient vision or courage to bring this work into fruition, and to all the unnamed and unnamable helpers who make such works as these possible. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. HUMANS ARE ULTRASOCIAL MORAL INTUITIONISTS .............................. 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 Improving our Self-Understanding as Humans ..................................................... 5 Not Rational Deciders ............................................................................................ 6 Kantian Rationalist Moral Theory ................................................................... 8 Hume’s Theory of Moral Sentiments .............................................................. 10 Scientific Views of Moral Cognition ..................................................................... 19 Intuitionist and Ultrasocial Moral Cognition ................................................... 20 Cognition: Emotional and Embodied............................................................... 23 The Moral Emotions and Profound Intersubjectivity ............................................ 27 Training in Moral Skillfulness ............................................................................... 31 In Sum .................................................................................................................... 38 II. EMPATHY EXPLAINED ...................................................................................... 40 Human Intersubjectivity and Moral Cognition ...................................................... 40 Empathy: Working Definition and Discussion ...................................................... 44 Facets of Empathy............................................................................................ 45 The Primordial Roots of Empathy ................................................................... 48 The Neurophysiology of Empathy and Moral Cognition ...................................... 55 Theory of Mind Relative to Empathy .............................................................. 67 Perception and Experience of Empathy ........................................................... 73 x

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