Why Do We Need Empathy?
- Date & time
- Speaker
- Professor Jane ShawProvost of Gresham College, Professor of the History of Religion at the University of Oxford
- Location
- Barnard's Inn Hall, Holborn
- Organisation
- Gresham College
Topics
More information & booking (opens in new tab)Free to attend
About this talk
Looking at examples from theatre, the visual arts, literature and music, and the work of philosophers Adam Smith, Iris Murdoch and Martha Nussbaum, this lecture demonstrates the importance of cultivating empathy through the arts as a way of understanding another person, community or society. It suggests empathy is a critical tool in the development of a moral imagination, more important than ever at a moment when figures such as Elon Musk have declared empathy a weakness, and divisions in society are so great.
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