Encountering the stranger: Hannah Arendt and the shortcomings of empathy as a moral compass

Abstract

It is a notion often taken for granted in contemporary Western everyday life that there is an intimate connection between empathy and moral action. Yet, in recent years, this connection has come under scrutiny. In this article, we first ask the question, “What is empathy?” A brief survey of the psychological and philosophical approaches to the notion of empathy shows that it remains a highly contested concept. The field has a propensity to discuss empathy within the frame of sameness. We instead argue that, in order to grasp empathy, it is necessary to foreground otherness. Drawing on Hannah Arendt, we further argue that, when encountering the stranger, moral action requires both visiting the other—as distinct from empathic knowledge—and thinking in order to judge what is right. Ultimately, moral dilemmas are solved, not by having or demanding empathy, but by addressing the issues at hand in joint action.