III—Sympathy, Empathy, and Twitter: Reflections on Social Media Inspired by an Eighteenth-Century Debate

Abstract How can the harm caused by waves of fake news or derogatory speech on social media be minimized without unduly limiting freedom of expression? I draw on an eighteenth-century debate for thinking about this problem: Hume and Smith present two different models of the transmission of emotions...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 2023-04, Vol.123 (1), p.51-72
Main Author: Herzog, Lisa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
18th century
Architecture
Communication
Disinformation
Emotions
Empathy
False information
Morality
Social media
Social networks
Society
Sympathy
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Summary:Abstract How can the harm caused by waves of fake news or derogatory speech on social media be minimized without unduly limiting freedom of expression? I draw on an eighteenth-century debate for thinking about this problem: Hume and Smith present two different models of the transmission of emotions and ideas. Empathetic processes are causal, almost automatic processes; sympathy, in contrast, means putting oneself into the other person’s position and critically evaluating how one should react. I use this distinction to argue that the architectural logic of social media should be improved to prevent cumulative harms and to facilitate sympathetic processes.
ISSN:0066-7374
1467-9264
DOI:10.1093/arisoc/aoad004