Sympathy and ethics of care

Abstract

This article seeks to reconstruct two positions on sympathy: on the one hand, that of David Hume in the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century, and, on the other, that of Michael Slote, inserted in the ethics of care and in our century. Firstly, we will seek to reconstruct Humean's position, and the criticisms that were directed at him during his time and how he responded to them in the Inquiry into the Principles of Morals (1751), by resorting to the principle of humanity. In a second moment, we will present Slote's position, which sees Hume as the great predecessor of the ethics of care and sympathy (or, currently, empathy) as the cement of morality, and defends the movement called empathy with empathy. Finally, using Annette Baier's criticism, we will argue that Slote's theory of empathy is unable to respond to some current ethical problems.