Theories Of Empathy

The development of the human race has been a spectacular one. According to modern theories, the development of man took billions of years and only happened because of a very specific set of variables and conditions. What marks one of the many extraordinary qualities in the human species is the ability to self-aware and cognizant. This self-awareness has many implications, one being the ability to empathize. This empathy can be for oneself or for others’ depending on the relationship to the recipient. In “A neurobehavioral evolutionary perspective on the mechanisms underlying empathy” authors Jean Decety, Greg J. Norman, Gary G. Berntson, John T. Cacioppo explore this phenomenon.

In terms of the structure of the essay, the authors take a very

Especially with the human body and the brain there are so many intricate connections and cooperating systems that isolating one sensations (empathy) and the effect it has on the brain becomes a highly technical adventure. However the author’s attacked much of the content with a high level of precision. What helped a layman such as I understand the text more thoroughly were the case studies that the authors included which gave first hand experience of empathy in animals and humans. There were two prominent ones, one that detailed the interactions between rats and mice when presented with painful stimuli or encountering others with painful stimuli. The second was the human version of this. The messages of both of these studies were that empathy activated a certain part of the brain (medial preoptic area) that created involuntary aversive responses to said stimuli. While the technical explanation of this phenomenon gave the reader a profuse understanding of the concept of empathy, the anecdotal evidence helps support the empirical. The authors don’t ask us to ponder much in terms of the philosophical implications of empathy. This paper is purely technical and doesn’t delve much into the social machinations of empathy and how choosing to display or not to display empathy has an impact on society. Of course these are questions that the

Had the audience been less educated, I’m sure the language would have been more watered down and taken a more visual form. In terms of grammar and spelling there were no mistakes. Many of the words were quite lengthy and obtuse and there was not much filler material. With scholarly works such as these they go through a series of edits in order to produce the most credible and error free submission. Many of the sentences are complex, making fluid reading of this piece more difficult than other prose. The language itself is somewhat basic, there aren’t very many descriptive terms or conceptual language. In a generation that grew up with Bill Nye the Science guy, we aren’t used to viewing science in a pure and boring form. With many branches of science there are no violent explosions or chance of a breakthrough discovery. A lot of science is just filling in the blanks for phenomenon that we already understand. This language confirms that sentiment. The topic being discussed, while important in the realm of pro social development, becomes very mundane when explored with ink. Throughout this work there is no plead to ethos, it would have been unnecessary. Emotional pleas are often used in place of convincing, factual information. This article had an overwhelming amount of factual information and being that it was not an argumentative article, there was no side to plea