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

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

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© 2015 Kimberley Dianne Phillips Parzuchowski

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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
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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.

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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

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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
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and anger have taught me more about the meaning and complexity of moral life than any
book I have ever read.

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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.

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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

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