Anti-Utilitarian Empathy: an Ethical and Epistemological Journey

Irina Ionita

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Chapter 7 Anti-Utilitarian Empathy: an Ethical and Epistemological Journey

In: Empathy: Emotional, Ethical and Epistemological Narratives

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Irina Ionita

Irina Ionita
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 82–91

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004398122_008

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Abstract

If time is money and the human being an endless range of the homo œconomicus figure who maximizes profit/pleasure by minimizing losses/pain, isn’t empathy eminently anti-utilitarian? Isn’t the effort to connect with the Other, by putting oneself in the place of the Other in order to understand their perspective from their point of view, a risk of minimizing profit/pleasure by maximizing losses/pain? And isn’t that a promising prospect? Stemming from this questioning, the paper tells the story of an interdisciplinary doctoral research in development studies on the nomadic concept of empathy. Beyond inter- or trans-disciplinary, empathy becomes an undisciplined concept, which not only navigates from a discipline to the next, but also questions the ethics and epistemology of every step of the way by taking the researcher into unexpected conceptual, geographical and geopolitical territories. In this case, it moves conceptually from anti-utilitarianism to decoloniality; geographically, from Geneva to Quebec and Ontario; and geopolitically, from a Western perspective to Indigenous loci of enunciation. Through three hypostases, empathy raises some interesting ethical and methodological questions in the realm of social sciences. While trying to answer the initial question of the pertinence of an anti-utilitarian type of empathy by exploring what seemed to be from afar an original case study, the concept took the researcher to Canada, to the Iroquois nations and their notion of responsibility towards the 7th generation into the future. However, when confronted with the complex colonial dimension of the relationship with the Indigenous peoples, the concept became a heuristic tool for the researcher who had to redefine her own capacity to empathize with her interlocutors, which in turn redefined her entire project. Undisciplined, empathy finally became an ethical decolonial practice, helping the researcher build unexpected bridges between several schools of thought and perceive a reciprocal, respectful and responsible dialogue.

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Empathy: Emotional, Ethical and Epistemological Narratives

Series: At the Interface / Probing the Boundaries, Volume: 123

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004398122

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 24 May 2019

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Chapter 7 Anti-Utilitarian Empathy: an Ethical and Epistemological Journey

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Empathy: Emotional, Ethical and Epistemological Narratives

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