Bringing together international perspectives on empathy and moral decision-making and providing a window into understanding when, why, and how people decide to have empathy and concern and help other people.

“The objective is to bring in researchers from around the world who do work on empathy and moral decision-making from a variety of perspectives,” explains Daryl Cameron, senior research associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, who convenes the Expanding Empathy Speaker Series.

“It’s meant to be a diverse set of perspectives and angles on the different ways that empathy can manifest in everyday life contexts,” Cameron adds. “And not just abstract, philosophical discussions—which are quite nice—but some of the topics we studied have direct, practical relevance to things like inter-group conflict and changes in empathy over time and across generations.”

The speakers tailored their presentations to a broad audience, anyone interested in empathy: the public, undergraduate and graduate students, and researchers alike.

This first panel includes Dr. Kristin Andrews (York University, Philosophy) who will present a talk "Empathy for Animal Communities" and Dr. Kristof Dhont (University of Kent, Psychology) who will present a talk "Loving and Exploiting Animals: The Ideological and Cultural Underpinnings of Speciesism".