The Effects of Cognitive and Emotional Empathy in Moral Judgement and Relevant Factors

Abstract

Empathy is described as the ability to understand and experience others' feelings and thoughts. Moral judgment is an important part of moral cognition. Previous studies found that empathy was potentially correlated with moral judgment. In those studies, the researchers noticed that empathic people tended to behave more prosocial and the people with trait alexithymia tended to behave more utilitarian when facing some moral dilemmas. Whether cognitive empathy or affective empathy influence the judgment is still hotly debated. Some researchers thought cognitive empathy promoted positive results and affective empathy introduced negative results. Some other researchers hold the opposite opinion, and they thought that affective empathy should be the dominant, as it is spontaneously generated. As the research of empathy-moral judgment deepens, more and more relevant factors were found, such as guilt, population characters, and punishment. This review systematically reviewed cognitive and emotional empathy's contribution to moral judgment with other factors, such as guilt and moral character. This review suggested that empathy should be treated as an integral predictor of moral judgments. Because cognitive and emotional empathy both have their benefits and weaknesses, when combined, maximum impact could be achieved. This review can provide a relatively comprehensive understanding for developing effective interventions.