Appropriate Response

"Empathy as appropriate response

Occasionally the psychology literature introduces a third approach to empathy, which is the idea of having an ‘appropriate response’ to a person, after having engaged in either or both of the two kinds off empathy noted above.8 This could be described as ‘consequentialist’ empathy. Those who bring in this third definition often emphasise that if you have shared the emotions of someone, or gained an understanding of their perspective, yet take no action as a result, then you have not fully experienced empathy. In a sense, it hasn’t really touched you. Empathy, by this definition, needs to make a difference. It has to inspire moral action of some form." (KRZNARIC 2008)