Empathy and Testimonial Trust

What is it about?

Our collective enthusiasm for empathy reflects a sense that it is deeply valuable. In this paper, I show that empathy bears a complex and surprisingly problematic relation to another social epistemic phenomenon that we have reason to value, namely testimonial trust. My discussion focusses on the significance of this relation in the context of allyship. Oppressed people suffer from an unjust dearth of trust in their testimony. I first argue that empathy for oppressed people can be a powerful tool for engendering a certain form of testimonial trust, because there is a tight connection between empathy and a (limited) approval of another’s outlook. I next suggest that this picture of how empathy engenders trust also makes it clear why the trust empathy can support is not the only kind that members of oppressed communities might reasonably demand. Empathy can provide no support for trust that persists in the face of the recognition that another’s perspective is alien to us, and there is good reason to believe that this “riskier” form of trust is both needful and something responsible allies can be expected to furnish.

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