I'm afraid that doesn't get you anywhere. Empathy for whom --- for the pregnant woman, as pro-choicers would say, or for the fetus, as pro-lifers would claim? For the murderer, as opponents to capital punishment would claim, or for the victim, as its supporters would say?Felix wrote: ↑June 19th, 2019, 2:51 pm
I was referring to the capacity for empathy which all sane individuals have, and un/insane ones lack. Morality requires empathy, and reason too, but not reason alone. Reason alone cannot dictate what is morally right or wrong, and the answers to the questions you mentioned are not strictly rational.
Such questions cannot be resolved by appeals to empathy, any more than by appeals to values. They are both idiosyncratic, varying from person to person with respect to both their intensity and their objects. Moral rules with a rational basis can be understood, and perhaps even accepted, by both the saint and the sociopath, because they follow from objective premises.