Analyzing Aristotle's Theory Of Empathy, By Aristotle And Kant

Emotion is a part of what makes us human, so much so that often if someone lacks emotion they are considered non-human; like Frankenstein. In some cases this human characteristic on its own isn’t thought to mix well with moral judgement. With many views supporting this statement, is there still room in the moral code for both reason and emotion? An analysis of the role that the specific emotion empathy has in moral judgment helps explain this matter in Aristotle and Kant’s view; I prefer Aristotle’s prospective. Moral judgement can embrace emotion in the case of Aristotle, but not in its full glory. Aristotle embraces emotion in morality only as long as it is transformed by reason. On the surface level of his doctrine of the mean, his use of vices and virtues

Analyzing Aristotle’s view from the prospective of empathy, it can be see how the prior quote connects what Aristotle is saying to recent real life examples. In fact looking through an Aristotelian lense at “The Baby in the Well- The case against empathy”, it is seen that empathy is good only when constrained by reason. When the emotion of empathy takes all, the rationality goes south, and the morality of the situation can’t maximize its potential. An example of this from the article is the overflow of empathy that was shown to the home of the Sandy Hook massacre. In this situation, the respondents’ connection to their emotion was so strong that after a point the help became excess. What is meant by this is that gifts and volunteers flooded in to show their support, and became so much that there were places dedicated to store the massive amount of stuffed animals given. These actions show what Aristotle doesn’t mean by emotion being guided by reason. In this situation, the empathy was shown in abundance, and cause what was intended to be a virtue to transform into a