Building bridges across species: empathy, prosociality, and ecosocial education

Abstract

Empathy, the ability to recognize and resonate with the experiences of others, is essential for prosocial behaviors and moral agency. It’s an evolved ability, which can also be cultivated through education. Empathy is a strong predictor of pro-environmental attitudes and action, indicating its role in multispecies prosociality. In this theoretical article, I focus on the interspecies and epistemic dimensions of empathy. Founded on Edith Stein’s phenomenological understanding and recent socio-neurological research of empathy, I categorize empathy into two layers: perceptual and imaginative empathy. These layers have advantages and limitations in terms of multispecies prosociality. Finally, I address the role of empathy across species in ecosocial education and suggest potential pedagogical methods to cultivate interspecies empathy and multispecies prosociality.